Digital Branding

A recognisable brand is a powerful competitive advantage. It can increase enquiries, sales conversion, repeat purchases and referrals. That is why people need to know and trust your company.

In the past, brand advertising required enormous budgets and was affordable only to large companies. They spent heavily on television, outdoor and radio advertising to reach broad audiences. The internet changed that. Even a small company with a modest budget and a focused audience can now build a brand.

Here are some thoughts on how to do it.

A brand has two essential components: awareness and reputation. For a product to be considered, people first need to know it exists. After all, how can someone buy a product they have never heard of? Reputation grows from the quality of the product or service. Even if people recognise a brand, they will not trust it if they do not like it.

Reputation takes time to earn. It comes from consistently keeping your promises. A quality product encourages people to leave positive reviews. Recommendations are among the strongest forms of marketing because they show that a brand is useful.

For example, Apple promises that its devices will be easy, convenient and enjoyable to use—and that they will look good. The company has delivered on those promises for years. The result is a positive reputation and many recommendations.

Promoting posts can help build awareness by placing your message in social media feeds in front of a selected audience. The original article estimated that three touchpoints with an audience of 20,000 people would cost RUB 15,000 per month. This is not a hard sell; it is a way to share something useful about your product and brand. With thoughtful, consistent communication, you can become better known and establish expertise. That is digital branding.

The number of interactions with a brand matters: repeated contact makes it more visible. The information environment is crowded, and the volume keeps growing. To stay in a potential customer’s memory, a brand needs regular contact. The author noted seeing iPhone 7 advertising around 30 times a day. Even a large, well-known brand works to remain visible; a small company may need to reach its audience at least five times a week to be noticed.

Remarketing technology is one of the tools behind digital branding. Major advertising platforms—including Yandex, Facebook, VK and Google—offer code you can add to a website or allow you to upload a customer list. This lets you build an audience of people who have visited your site. You can communicate with that audience as a brand without broadcasting to everyone. These messages can appear in social media feeds and on many websites people visit.

If you promote posts to a remarketing audience and reach people, for example, five times a week, your brand stays visible. People may see it as active and familiar and recommend it to others—even if they are not customers themselves. That is how awareness and reputation begin to work together.

Digital tools can make a brand better known. But the hardest—and most important—part is creating an excellent product that delights its audience.