Steps to build an effective digital strategy for your brand
The building blocks you need to succeed
The building blocks you need to succeed
You may be sitting there wondering what a digital branding strategy even is, let alone why it’s important. Let us enlighten you!
A digital strategy is both a tangible thing and a concept. Confusing, we know. We mean that in the sense that a digital strategy is an ideation that should eventually lead to the cultivation of a map and plan for your business’s future. Your digital strategy outlines your company’s direction and what steps it will take to establish a competitive advantage and reach its overall goals.
Knowing where you want to be is fantastic, knowing how you’re going to get there is even better. Think of any road trip you’ve ever been on. You can be completely invested in and excited about reaching your destination, but the chances of you getting extremely lost increase significantly when you have no map to guide you.
Understand its importance now? Wonderful, now here are our steps to build an effective digital strategy that’ll enhance your brand’s brilliance. We warn you, this involves a lot of self discovery (of your brand), and may require the aid of a creative design agency. So get prepared to find yourself (and your brand).
Ask yourself, why did I build my business? What was my motivation? Make sure you don’t confuse this with; What does my business offer? Sharing your dream and why you took the leap of faith to establish your brand helps you begin telling a brand story that people want to listen to. Your brand story is ultimately your brand promise; what your consumers would expect from your business.
What do you want to achieve for your business? Shoot for the stars here, but only if you know you can get your hands on a rocket. You must make sure your goals are achievable. Whether it is to increase content engagement by 15%, or to sell 100 more products per month, identify what you think your business’ next step needs to be. Make sure you write these down, give them a timeframe and let them guide your strategy.
It’s extremely difficult to reach an audience if you don’t know who that audience is. So when you’re building an effective digital strategy, it’s pretty important to develop your customer personas. These allow you to paint a picture of the exact person you are trying to attract, why your brand appeals to them and how to engage with them effectively.
Talk about your customer personas like you know them, like they are real, and you’ll be able to talk to your customers as if you know them. Because really, if done right, you will know them and your digital strategy will detail that.
Knowledge is power and information is key. So do your best to gather as much as you can. Learn how your target audience is going to find you, what touchpoints are most important to them when making decisions and what makes them purchase, and even what makes them not.
Knowing where your audience is and how you should interact with them effectively means you’ll be successfully reaching them and talking their language — pretty critical to an effective digital strategy. With new social and digital channels popping up at an extreme rate, it’s next to impossible to have a hand in each pot. And you absolutely shouldn’t. Find out where your audience is and focus on meeting them there. Maybe they don’t use Snapchat, but they do love Instagram. Invest the time and funds you would have allocated to Snapchat to Instagram and double your engagement.
If you know us you know we love our content. For good reason too. In the current environment, content is king, with every successful brand churning out useful and relevant content just for their audiences. As we so generously shared in our blog post about content (did you see that sneaky content plug), you should be consistently providing your consumers with content they specifically want or need. Content helps your creative brand design build credibility, value and cultivate relationships. A creative agency in Brisbane could help you boost this strategy, too (wink wink!).
Be realistic with what resources are available to you and keep this in mind when you start to build an effective digital strategy. Take into consideration the time, money and people you need to invest in, and bear this in mind when creating your digital strategy. We cannot stress how important it is to be realistic and reasonable. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
It’s not only important for your strategy, but ensuring you have clarity on expectations and resources, meaning your employees will be less overwhelmed.
Unfortunately you can’t just follow these steps once and wipe your hands clean of them. In order to be useful it is crucial you continuously review your digital strategy. What’s working and why is it working, and how can we continue moving forward?
Data collection is also crucial. Thanks to the goals you established you’ll know exactly what metrics you need to focus on and whether you’ve hit them, and if so; how, and if not; why, so you can learn, adapt and improve.
So there you have it. The not-so-simple, simple steps you need to build an effective digital strategy and enhance your creative brand design strategy. Feeling like this is all quite daunting? We happen to know some pros at this digital strategy building thing. We actually know them quite well, in fact, it is our very own team here in our Brisbane based creative agency.
Don’t be afraid of a creative digital strategy and definitely don’t be afraid to reach out for a helping hand. We don’t bite (people), we promise.