Let’s face it, nowadays we are living in the era of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social networks, this is why building a brand has become a real challenge.
A decade ago, most of the greatest companies decided to hire creative digital agencies to insert brands to the digital universe, but despite all the efforts, those companies didn’t play a great role.
What happened? Most of the companies made huge investments in what we call “branded content”, why? The way of thinking was this: Social media would allow your company to improve your traditional media efforts and forge a direct relationship with your customers.
These great brands thought that telling great stories and connecting with their customers in real time will build a community of consumers. Businesses have invested billions of dollars pursuing this vision, and they even generated a meaningful interest of their consumers online, they can’t consider themselves digitally successful.
The business, and more specifically, the marketing landscape has changed over the years from Marketing to Digital Marketing as a primary tool for reaching an audience. And this is the wrong way that most of the brands took, they spend time building a community instead of constructing digital strategies that may take the brand to a level were digital marketing may bring better incomes.
Digital marketing is the advertising and marketing efforts that use the Web and email to drive direct sales via electronic commerce, in addition to sales leads from Websites or emails.” These methods are much different than the traditional, but still relevant, methods of TV, radio and physical (newspapers) marketing methods. This is because the internet is constantly changing and there are a number of metrics to analyze and improve upon when utilizing internet marketing. It’s not magic … it’s insight.
To build a correct community of consumers, the main areas that you would have to work on are:
Your Website
The first subset of digital marketing is website marketing through your site to provide information about your product, service or business to gain the attention of potential customers.
Email Marketing
It is used by companies to keep customers and followers up to date with newly published content on their website and ultimately drives those email subscribers to their website. Email marketing, when done right, is interesting and captivating enough to get the reader interested in your content.
Social Media
This area is used by individuals to connect to their peers and where they share relevant and interesting information about the brand. By taking advantage of this facet of marketing, you appeal to people’s interests by sharing information with your followers that may interest them. By doing this you drive visitors to your social media profiles, where you should have a link to your website, and after repeated visits turn those visitors into leads. Once a lead is produced, they may subscribe to your newsletter to provide them with deals, information or content about your brand, service or products.
ROI
Overall, digital marketing is the fastest and easiest way to generate leads and convert those leads into sales and repeat customers who promote your brand to their social circles. It is quickly becoming the most relevant way to reach your customers and stay up to date on trends, changes in the market or industry, and pass the knowledge onto your followers.
So now you know, if you are willing to dip your toe in the Digital “water” you need to take time to see if you have all the elements to start constructing a community of consumers, instead of building a community of followers that won’t never consume your products or services.