Brands and the Digital World

 

Here are some of the effects of the digital world on brands:

 

• A brand’s online presence can improve brand awareness.
• A brand’s website is critical to the perception of that brand because most people investigate a brand by going to its website.
• Blogs can create thought leadership and emotional connection for a brand. But consistent new content over time is required to activate these effects.
• If a picture is worth a thousand words, then videos are worth ten thousand words. Consider creating a YouTube channel for your brand.
• For thought leadership, consider podcasts too.
• SEO is still important.
• A third (older) to a half (younger) of people investigate brands through social media before they purchase. 
• Advertising in social media makes it easier for people to become aware of and try new brands, including brands that could not break though in the analog world because of lack of marketing funds. This, to some degree, levels the playing field for smaller brands.
• More and more product offerings are delivered through social media feeds.
• Low follows, likes, views and shares can reflect negatively on a brand.
• If you are just starting with your brand’s online presence, use Facebook and Instagram first. 
• Consumer targeting is significantly improved through Facebook and Google ads. Data analytics can result in highly targeted or even tailored product offerings to individuals.
• Brands would do well to set up pages on Facebook and Instagram as a way to interact with customers.
• The Internet provides many forums for people to provide feedback on brands, including negative feedback. It would behoove brand advocates to monitor as many of those forums as possible and respond as appropriate. It is important to respond as quickly as possible.
• Online forums can increase consumer engagement with brands.
• The Internet leads to greater brand transparency, but skilled marketing can also make a brand seem bigger or more popular than it actually is.
• Marketing automation can generate quality leads.
• Marketing automation makes it easier for people to respond to offers without prior awareness of the brands behind the offers.
• One needs to be extremely careful about how the marketing automation is set up or it can backfire on the brand. This is very similar to how automated telephonic customer service can backfire on the brand. 
• Geofencing can encourage immediate purchase when a consumer is near a retail outlet. 
• Geofence in the places that your target customers are at the times when they are there. Think this through carefully 
• Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Venmo, PayPal and Amazon’s 1-Click Ordering make it easier for people to purchase things online with fewer clicks.
• The online presence of brands makes price comparison much easier, which can drive down prices or at least direct the consumer to the cheapest source of the brand.
• Online clothing brand sales are still tricky. Several approaches have been implemented to help with sizing and visualizing the clothes when worn but there still are issues with tactile qualities of the fabric, quality of the construction and fit. This may lead to more returns for online purchased clothing brands than store purchased clothing brands.
• The younger the consumer, the more everything is transacted on the smart phone. All brand interactions must be optimized for mobile. 
• To some degree, the digital world has made people more savvy and cynical about brands, mostly due to increased transparency.