ImaginativePRO Blog

BRANDING IN THE DIGITAL AGE - DIGITAL BRANDING STRATEGIES AND COMPARISONS WITH DIGITAL MARKETING

Your consumers are online, why aren’t you? Brands today have to realize the importance of the ever growing and versatile digital age while integrating any communication strategy. Digital devices have been on a rapid surge, due to which the consumer is looking to connect with the brands digitally. Your consumers, on any kind of digital media, are expecting you to digitally communicate with them. This means that any brand now has to strategize a digital plan to integrate their communication with their consumers to understand their trends, behaviors and also increase their impact, interactivity and awareness of their products and services with them.

The necessity of branding in the digital age is as important as branding itself. We have already seen what branding is in “Brand Guidelines and Why Your Business Needs Them?” In short, a brand comprises of all the elements such as the logo, color palette, typography, taglines, symbols, etc. that help you differentiate your brand from the others. It could be a product, service or even just a concept that can be communicated to the public to make you stand out from the competitors in the market. The methodology of creating a unique and distinctive personality of any product with the help of various elements is known as branding.

Similarly, branding in the digital age, which is also called as Digital Branding, is a brand communication strategy that is implemented with the use of the internet and digital marketing to enhance a brand’s attributes, establish their presence and promote the brand. It gets its roots from direct marketing and is done via certain digital platforms such as the internet itself, mobile applications, social media and most importantly, digital media content. It also comprises of all the elements such as the logo, color palette, typography, taglines, symbols, etc. The content is in reference to blogs, organic videos, e-mailers, website content, etc. with its overall appearance as well, that appeals to your target group.

Whether it is traditional branding, or digital, successful branding can only be reflected on the target consumer’s perception about your brand. This successful branding will help you enhance your brand positioning in the minds of the consumers. Hence, on the digital platforms, it is important to strategize your communication in a manner that resonates with the positioning that you wish to have. Due to digital marketing and social media, it has become easier to connect and interact with the consumer online, but it has also become easier for the consumer to change his perception about you as well. To avoid this, it is important to stick to the brand guidelines, that defines the tone, color, typography and the overall appearance of your brand, even it if is to be done digitally. There cannot be any kind of inconsistency with reference to the branding tools that are used even traditionally. Your brand should have utmost consistency on all of the digital platforms, which increases your credibility and appeal, and also increases consumer loyalty.

Differences Between Digital Branding and Digital Marketing

Importance of Digital Branding:

Autonomous Consumers: With oceans of information flowing everyday on the digital platform, the consumer is often left in dilemmatic situations, especially in case of products and services. The consumers are often “spoilt for choice”, which essentially means that you have to make your brand stand out in terms of your product and service offerings as compared to your competition. The average consumer is smarter now, due to the information about all products and services available at his/her fingertips.

Change in Consumer Behaviors: The digital age has eradicated all kinds of geographical barriers in the world today. Due to this, social trends change almost every day, which directly affect the consumer’s behavior as well. The average consumer will still desire new products and services, but their social circles, perception, psychology and research will change their decisions very quickly, which means that your brand’s communication approach has to change with the trends as well, to stay ahead of the competition.

Lesser Importance to the Funnel Model: The funnel model is a consumer’s purchase journey that follows the sequence of awareness, opinion, consideration, preference and finally the purchase. Traditionally, a consumer follows this journey and brands integrate their communication in such a manner that this funnel model is smooth. But in the digital era, the interactivity with a brand is extremely high and directly affects the purchase decision.

Engagement: Digital branding’s greatest factors are the levels of engagement and interactivity that it allows between the brand and the consumers. A consumer will definitely prefer a brand that “connects”. This requires the brand to socially engage and provide interactive content through blogs, infographics, videos, etc. regularly, as it appeals to the consumer very well.

Digital Branding, just like offline branding, has a process that is followed. This process is in such a way that the brand establishes its distinct presence and personality on the digital platforms, and makes itself stand out from the rest.

Following is the process:

Target Group: In the digital era, identifying your target group has a somewhat different approach to it. As the consumer is present on roughly 250 digital platforms today, it is important to understand and map the consumer’s journey, to understand their behavior and segment them accordingly to match the category your offering fall into. This includes specific and detailed research that help you indentify certain factors such as the consumer’s demographics, income, behavior, age, gender, etc.

Brand Values: Your brand values are the factors that drive you to excellence in product and service offerings. Clearly defining your core values and mission for your brand help you remain consistent in your communication processes and implement those values in it. Having a definitive mission and core values help consumers feel connected to your brand and it appeals to them, especially if the values resonate with their own. It has also become easier to reflect the same values in your digital communication through blogs, videos, social media, etc.

Brand Positioning: Brand positioning is the influence and impact of your brand in the minds of the consumers. It helps them make a perception of your brand, and gives you a competitive edge in an already established market. If your brand has been successfully positioned, especially on the digital platforms, it gains certain popularity through word of mouth and the most important factor of digital media — virality. Due to this, it becomes much easier to add new products to your offerings if the consumer already trusts your brand.

Brand Identity: Your identity entails your message, personality, name, logo, etc. and anything that will help the consumer recognize your product first in the digital market. Consumers today tend to buy products that enhance and uplift their own personality. Integrating a strong brand identity gives your brand very high recognition in a market that already has products that are similar to yours. For a consumer that sees thousands of brands on his screen, your brand identity is what will make him consider you first. Brand names and logos are also equally important as they increase the brand’s recall level. Your brand name should resonate with your personality and identity, and also the kind of products and services that you are offering. Your logo is your greatest persona. With successful branding, consumers can identify your product on any digital platform by just looking at the logo, and it also gives certain credibility to it.

Brand Objectives: Now that you are on digital platforms, what is it that you want to do? What are your goals and what are you promising to your target group? Your brand must have a tagline that is extremely crisp, memorable and that resonates with your personality. This same slogan can deliver or showcase your brand’s promise, and this is where you as a brand position yourself in the market. If the consumers are clear with your objectives, you will most likely be the go-to brand for them.

Color Palette: Your color palette distinctly represents your brand’s visual identity. There are certain combinations of colors that help you position yourself and abstractly talk about your brand values, and also attract a certain niche group of people. This color palette helps you remain consistent on any digital platform and provides authenticity. Colors themselves hold meaning and carry a message.

All these factors help you successfully build a brand in the digital age today. Consumers are always looking for engaging content to interact with, and the digital era has changed the way the consumers think and behave, and also the way the brand approaches them. It has become extremely vital to have a digital presence, regardless of the brand’s offerings.

COMMENTARY:   Brands that developed and employed a consistent digital marketing strategy that incorporated a sound digital branding strategy across the entire spectrum of customer digital touchpoints tended to keep existing customers, win over new customers and strengthened brand loyalty during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In times of a crisis, it can be hard for businesses to know where to begin.  But every company needs a digital branding strategy, especially during the new normal of COVID-19.  The role of digital branding during a crisis should include creating a shared sense of an “in-it-together” camaraderie.

It’s a tougher competitive marketplace for many companies, but there is good news and that is, everyone is home, online and paying attention to different digital mediums.  Many companies have been pushed forward into realms they were originally uncomfortable with, yet have been finding success and opportunities, which will ultimately drive how business moves forward when recovery comes.

Companies are adapting to a completely digital environment and consumer mindset (see above) during the COVID-19 pandemic.   And brands are adjusting and innovating with new creative, pivoting to virtual events and digital solutions. A marketing tactic that was once unfamiliar to some is being fast-tracked partly due to the coronavirus pandemic. After some initial messaging about the disruption in business operations resulting from the coronavirus, companies are back to marketing. Without a physical product to ship, they have been diving deep into nurture campaigns and lead generation, planning for a successful future.

This “new” way of doing business online ensures that consumers have anything and everything they want, literally at their fingertips and in real time. Companies are presenting products digitally and substituting in-person events for webinars, virtual tours and video calls. It’s prime time for moving more heavily into social media, case studies, blogs and other thought leadership content to engage people now, as they are seeking escapism, entertainment and information.

Branding efforts need to remain strong, so customers will recognize, remember and consider your products or services amidst your competitors. What is important is how you portray your brand. What is your brand promise, beyond your products? How about your company’s value proposition? It is a great time to determine how you can make the same offering for people in a virtual setting. Track human behavioral trends, associate your brand with good, use social media to pivot as circumstances change and turn to digital mediums to connect with customers.

Creating a brand doesn’t happen overnight. It takes consistent work, long-term goals, digital strategy research, creativity and the right platforms. To create a digital branding strategy, you should:

Courtesy of an article dated September 30, 2019 appearing in Interics Designs, an article dated July 10, 2020 appearing in Marketing Charts, an article dated October 24, 2019 appearing in Designer People, an article dated April 2, 2021 appearing in Business To Community, an article dated March 15, 2021 appearing in Medium.com, an article appearing in Digital Branding Institute, and an article appearing in NXTBook Media

 

 

TWITTER IS "BRAIN DEAD" AFTER MASSIVE LAYOFFS AND COST CUTS BY NEW OWNER ELON MUSK, CAN THE SOCIAL MEDIA GIANT BE SAVED?

An analysis of Musk’s tweets shows him at the center of conversations once kept on the fringes of Twitter.

People don’t die in an instant. Death is, instead, a process of shutting down. You stop breathing; your organs stop working, bit by bit. Your brain ceases to function. Brain death is permanent, but your heart can still keep beating on its own for a time.

The state of Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover feels like this sort of brain death: the processes that keep it online are somehow still beating, but what Twitter was before Musk is never coming back.

On Monday, December 12, Twitter dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, a wide-ranging group of global civil rights advocates, academics, and experts who have advised the company since 2016. Meanwhile, Musk has welcomed back previously banned high-profile extremists like the white nationalist Patrick Casey. According to data compiled by researcher Travis Brown, others reinstated include Meninist, a “men’s rights” account with more than a million followers; Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who gained a large audience for advocating discredited covid-19 treatments and arguing against receiving the vaccine; and Tim Gionet, a far-right media personality who livestreamed his participation in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Musk’s enthusiasm for eliminating jobs, cutting costs, and undoing Twitter's safety infrastructure has caused advertisers to leave in droves. At one point, the company reportedly lost the business of half its top 100 advertising clients, and it has missed weekly US ad revenue expectations by as much as 80%. Musk’s behavior now poses difficult questions for the brands that remain. The company has stopped enforcing its policy on covid-19 misinformation.

And as people who like Musk’s vision for Twitter return to posting, others are finding it tougher to justify their presence on the site, declaring hiatuses or announcing their migration elsewhere. According to one estimate, Twitter may have lost a million users in just a few days after Musk took over. Others are giving up on tweeting even if they haven’t deleted their accounts yet. Some of these are high profile: Elton John quit Twitter on December 9, citing the site’s policy changes on misinformation.

MIT Technology Review ran an analysis in Hoaxy, a tool created by Indiana University to show how information spreads on Twitter by looking at both keyword frequency and interactions between individual accounts. The results hint at Musk’s new role in this network: as effectively a hall monitor for the far right.

The tool plots interactions visually, showing the connections between individual Twitter accounts on a specific keyword or hashtag and indicating whether that account is the one amplifying the search term to others or being mentioned by accounts that are doing so. Accounts that are more actively involved in conversations appear as nodes.

Musk was a key “node” of activity around usage of the “groomer” slur—we looked at both “Groomer” and “OK groomer”— from Friday, December 9, through the afternoon of Sunday, December 11, when we ran the analysis. (We also ran a second query on Wednesday, December 14, which showed similar results.) Musk himself has not tweeted the word—which, according to a report from GLAAD and Media Matters, has dramatically increased in frequency and reach during his tenure. Instead, he has been repeatedly tagged into conversations by others who are using it.

Sometimes these users are apparently seeking attention and amplification from the guy who owns Twitter, and implicitly identifying the slur’s recipients as potential targets for harassment. At other times, Musk is tagged in conversations where the slur is used to attack those who directly disagree with him on Twitter—including Jack Dorsey, the company’s cofounder and former CEO, who tweeted at Musk last week to dispute his claim that the company “refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk regularly interacts with a selection of power users and fans, including conservative meme accounts and far-right personalities like Ian Miles Cheong and Andy Ngo.

Increasingly, Musk isn’t just enabling these conversations—he’s joining in. “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” he tweeted last weekend. When astronaut Scott Kelly publicly pleaded with him not to “mock and promote hate toward already marginalized and at-risk-of-violence members of the #LGBTQ+ community,” Musk replied, ”Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.”

Earlier that weekend, Musk participated in a smear campaign targeting Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety and a key figure in those documents, with baseless accusations of pedophilia. (Musk, who previously fended off a defamation suit for calling a British caver participating in a rescue operation of a Thai youth soccer team a “pedo guy,” did not go so far as to actually accuse Roth of being a pedophile. Rather, he jumped in the replies of a podcast host who tagged Musk into a conversation about one of Roth’s old tweets.) Roth, according to CNN, was forced to leave his home and go into hiding after receiving numerous death threats. (Roth did not respond to an emailed request for comment.)

He makes decisions on the fly, sometimes through unscientific and easy-to-manipulate Twitter polls.

Meanwhile, Musk’s focus on advancing American far-right narratives about free speech completely ignores Twitter’s role around the world. Musk’s takeover of Twitter is “apocalyptic,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, the executive director of Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights organization, in a late November call with reporters. Soundararajan was part of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council and worked with the platform to address its use as a tool to incite violence against marginalized groups in India.

“We have an American company operating in a genocidal market,” Soundararajan said, adding that all the Twitter staff members her organization has worked with have been fired. 

Elon Musk’s Twitter is both essential and broken. There is no alternative platform for people who have long used Twitter to seek help, gain visibility, and create supportive communities. Yet at the same time, Musk has positioned himself as an antagonist to some of those same groups.

Many users—the ones who aren’t ideologically aligned with Musk—have watched Twitter’s vital organs slowly shut down and wondered how to respond. Do you stay and fight for its life, hoping that the people who were there before Musk’s purchase will simply outlast him? Or is it time to go?

Katherine Cross, a PhD student at the University of Washington who studies networked online harassment, has argued that Twitter will likely never recover, and it’s time to simply think about the platform as a site catering to a “niche community” of people who think like Musk.

“We can’t force Twitter to do anything,” she says. “There has to be a reimagining of its place in the internet ecosystem.”

COMMENTARY:    I don't know what Elon Musk's plans are for Twitter.  He paid $44 million for Twitter in a leveraged buyout. Here's what is known so far regarding the financing to acquire Twitter: 

Musk paid for Twitter by taking on $12.7 billion in debt. He paid for the rest in equity, some contributed by multiple investors. 

Musk used a leveraged buyout strategy, which means Twitter, not Musk, is on the hook to pay back the loans.

The leveraged loan's interest rate is based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, and banks funding the debt would use an interest rate of 4.75% over SOFR, according to an April SEC filing.

Major banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, MUFG, and Societe Generale have committed to giving Musk the $12.7 billion he requires for the acquisition.

Banks that lent $12.7 billion to Elon Musk for his $44 billion Twitter takeover will hold the debt until early 2023 as they wait for the billionaire to unveil a clearer business plan they can market to investors, the Financial Times reported.

Twitter had a market capitalization of $37.48 billion in March ($41 billion as of 12/15/22), the month before Mr. Musk agreed to buy it, S&P data showed.  Given Twitter's market cap in April, the $12.7 billion in debt represents a huge debt burden for Twitter -- roughly $1 billion in interest annualized ($12,700,000,000 x 8.57%*)  *4.75%+3.82=8.57% 

Compounding Elon Musk's task to turnaround Twitter is its reliance on advertising.  Half of Twitter's top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the social network.  A report from Media Matters for America states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020 and more than $750 million just in 2022.

Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., Ford, Jeep, Kyndryl, Merck & Co. and Novartis AG all issued statements about halting Twitter ads or were reported and confirmed as doing so. These companies have paid Twitter more than $255 million since 2020.  The others ceased advertising on the platform for a "significant period of time following direct outreach, controversies, and warnings from media buyers."

The report issued by Media Matters for America states that even with these hits to advertising revenue, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has "continued his rash of brand unsafe actions — including amplifying conspiracy theories, unilaterally reinstating banned accounts such as that of former President Donald Trump, courting and engaging with far-right accounts, and instituting a haphazard verification scheme that allowed extremists and scammers to purchase a blue check."

Although Elon Musk has been highly successful starting companies from scratch like Tesla and SpaceX, he has never turned around an existing company like Twitter or have the experience running one.  Time is of the essence and he does not have any time to lose.  He must return Twitter to normalcy and calmness.  Reinstating banned accounts like President Donald Trump is a definite turnoff and will only attract right-wing troublemakers, individuals passing misinformation and conspiracy theorists.  He is the wrong man at the wrong time to run Twitter.  He needs to bring in a CEO with solid experience turning around large, financially challenged companies. 

Twitter's most valuable asset is its 450 million monthly active users.  This is a huge worldwide audience who use Twitter to not just post funny jokes or insults to individualss they don't like, but to organize meetings and collaborate and organize groups towards actions.  I have a few ideas on how Musk can monetarily capitalize on this huge asset, but this is for another blog post.           

Courtesy of an article dated December 15, 2022 appearing in MIT Technology Review

HOW THE VOLUME OF MARKETING DATA, INCREASING NO OF MEDIA CHANNELS AND PLATFORMS AND RESILIENCY ARE DRIVING CMO'S TO ADOPT DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING

Remaining resilient and competitive means doubling down on data.

Despite the tumultuous past few years, 75% of CMOs at SMBs say their team was resilient enough to adapt to periods of unpredictability.

Recent crises have catalyzed a focus on using data to make marketing budgets go further, by rewarding those who have invested time and resources into their data strategies, while many of the less data mature have failed to survive. And for those who have successfully ridden out the storm, data is now front of mind as another hurricane forms on the horizon.

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In fact, among the CMOs at SMBs we surveyed, a staggering 85% agree that being able to make data-driven decisions is a critical competitive advantage. As the global economy teeters on the edge of recession once again, marketers can look back to draw on a couple of lessons from recent economic crises.

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CMOs are cutting down on inefficiency - not ops spend

An encouraging number of CMOs are allocating more resources to bolstering their data operations and capabilities. As found in our recent study on the evolving role of the CMO, 73% have committed to investing in a marketing ops role, with 33% having only introduced this role in the last year. Combining management of the martech stack, data quality control, and analytics at once, the position is a smart addition to help eliminate internal silos and drive team efficiency by ensuring easy access to connected data, whenever it’s needed.

Our latest results also indicate growing interest in further enhancing data mastery, with 29% of CMOs increasing their data ops budget for 2022. The shift towards bigger spending, however, doesn’t run across the board. Almost as many (27%) say their budget has decreased while 44% are working with the same spending pot as last year.

Although unchanged budgets might simply reflect steady costs, other findings indicate there could be additional issues at play. An overwhelming 70% of CMOs name money, not time, as their most stretched resource. With finances already a significant concern, many may be under strain that’s leading them to tighten purse strings and cap their data ops spending.

While pausing investment might bring some short-term gains, allowing spend to stagnate will cause multiple issues over time. As analytics tools and practices evolve, teams will fall further behind and be less able to squeeze as much as they can out of marketing budgets. Continued underinvestment also makes it more likely they will battle with further inefficiencies that add to already unwieldy workloads and impact productivity. Businesses, therefore, need to balance costs carefully, running calculations of how much they can save from stalling data ops investment, versus the benefits a well-supported team can drive.

Key Takeway:

Stretched finances could soon result in budget cuts. CMOs need to use their resources and invest in key areas now if they want to tackle the recession armed with better insight.

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What’s shaping the CMO’s roadmap?

CMOs are struggling to keep up with new platforms and channels

Fast escalating digitalization is bringing a mix of opportunities and challenges for CMOs at SMBs. Where new platforms and channels bring more scope for audience engagement, they’re also seeing an exponential rise in data and complexity.

Keeping on top of sprawling multi-channel activity is getting harder and harder; pushing up time to insight and making it difficult for teams to achieve the real-time performance view they need to guide quick and informed decisions. With demand for frequent and granular reports from the rest of the C-suite growing, it’s easy to see why CMOs are feeling pressured. One-third (33%) cite multiplying channels and platforms as the biggest external factor impacting marketing today.

In contrast, there is a much lower level of concern around data regulation, such as the GDPR. Previously high on every CMO’s priority list, the European regulation is now seen as a major external impact by just 8%, relegating it to last place. Despite increasing fines for rule breaches, marketing leaders are more comfortable with regulations they know and have already adjusted to than the varied complications emerging channels and platforms create; highlighting the urgent need for them to adapt in line with rapid digital evolution.

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More channels and platforms have left CMOs buried under their data

As might also be expected, both capturing and using the data generated by increasing channels and platforms is proving a challenge. Nearly all (99%) of CMOs say their marketing team is working with at least 10 data sources, 52% say they’re working with 14 data sources or more, and 32% say their teams use external data sources for marketing analytics.

While similar research from 2019 revealed that nearly half (47%) of respondents had 6 or fewer data sources, three years on we couldn’t find a single respondent reporting so few data sources.

As more and more data streams in from different directions, teams are reaching their limit; with 67% of CMOs admitting they have been overwhelmed by the quantity of marketing data available in recent years. This may also explain why the unpredictability of black swan events and the growing complexity of audience behavior rank second and third in key external impacts on marketing, at 26% and 17% respectively.

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As marketers struggle to deal with infinitely increasing data sources, effectively tracking and responding to unpredictable events is becoming more difficult. The expanding variety of platforms and channels that consumers engage with is also creating similar problems for understanding audience behavior, with marketing teams struggling to achieve a clear view amid a relentless influx of disparate data.

Tellingly, for respondents who cited a lack of resilience and difficulty adjusting during black swan events, reports of data overload soar to 92%, and jump to 100% for those decreasing their data ops budget this year. For marketing teams that have not invested in strengthening data handling capacity and implementing streamlined processes, keeping pace with digitalization is a tougher task.

Key Takeaway

Marketing is going to get more complicated as digital development presses on. CMOs that ensure teams can handle the rising data tide will have the best chance of staying afloat and steering their way to optimal outcomes.

What’s stopping CMO's from investing in tech?

Optimism about company prospects is crucial, especially when it comes to thriving through a recession. But it’s also important for businesses not to view data capabilities with rose-tinted glasses.

In our recent Marketing Analytics: State of Play 2022 report, 68% of respondents self-identified as data mature, despite lingering dependence on outdated practices and spreadsheets.

Download the full report to continue reading HERE.

Courtesy of an e-book dated September 2022 titled, "What's Shaping The CMO's Roadmap: Recession, Resilience and Marketing Data" published by Adverity  

A MANIFESTO ON NEUROMARKETING, OR HOW TO GET INSIDE THE MIND OF TODAY'S CONSUMERS AND WIN THEM OVER

 

It takes more than a fancy logo, fancy catch phrase or brand character to connect with today's consumers.  Today, what counts far more than a puma, a monkey, or a snarling aardvark is the cross-sensory experience your brand offers.  It's not just the emotion, beliefs, personality and desires your brand evokes, but its feeling, touch, view, sound and smell, of which the logo is just one small part. 

When marketing to today's Generation Y (a.k.a. Millennials) and Generation X consumers it's very important for marketer's to use a sensory marketing approach that appeals to the five senses:  sense: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste and fulfills their social needs or values.

The sensory marketing approach has given rise to the science of neuromarketing, a new field of marketing that studies consumers' sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli.  In effect, getting inside the head of the consumer.  Neuromarketing has often been equated with brainwashing, an evil concept if there ever was one, which results in the forced modification of human behavior by repeatedly exposing individuals to the same stimuli over-and-over again.  

Neuromarketing has been used very successfuly in the political arena, where candidates for public office use "negative" advertisements that paint their opponent as "soft" on a popular political issue (e.g. national defense, crime enforcement, etal) or "for" an unpopular political issue (e.g. abortion, universal healthcare, etal).  If voter's are continually told that Barack Obama is not a legal American citizen or is a muslim, a lot of people will eventually believe that as true.  Both parties are guilty of using negative ads, but I won't get into political issues.

Without reallly realizing it, marketer's have been using neuromarketing for quite some time. When you come to think about it, a firm's brand equity, is really the sum of all the influences, both sensory, emotinal and social that consumer's connect with a brand.  No where is this more importan5t than when marketing to Generation X and Y.   This is based on my observance of human behaviors especially among Millennials and Gen-X because they are both sensory and social animals.  They are very susceptible to sensory stimulation and place very high value on social interaction and relationships.    In fact, I have developed a manifesto or marketing strategy built on two pillars:  

• Sensory Approach - A marketing approach that involves the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. 
• Social Approach - A marketing approach that involves the social needs of the individual.

It has been my experience that employing only a sensory approach will not prove as successful, and that marketer's must integrate a social approach into the equation.  Trust me, you do not want to get this part wrong.  

In developing my manifesto, I discuss the general marketing principle's I have employed in marketing to Gen-Y and Gen-X,  and the best and least successful advertising and promotions strategy's that should be used for both demographics.         

Marketing To Gen-Y and Gen-X 

GENERATION-Y MARKETING APPROACH
Gen-Y consumers are the most ethnically diverse of all demographics.  Gen-Y’s are interested in pop culture, being part of the latest fad, things or activities that are trendy, hip and cool, experiencing new tastes, listening to the latest music, wearing the trendiest clothes, playing the latest online games, interacting and communicating with their friends, expressing their opinions and showing off.  Their friends are very important and part of their social DNA.  They ignore traditional advertising and rely more on word-of-mouth.  Gen-Y’s are the “we want it now” generation and interested in immediate gratification.  Gen-Y’s work hard until they get bored.  Gen-Y’s are less brand loyal and always looking for a good value.  These qualities require a marketing approach that is both sensory and social.
The Sensory Approach	The Social Approach
The sensory  marketing approach involves the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.	The social  marketing approach involves satisfying a Gen-Y’s need for social interaction and being part of social groups or communities.
Marketers must be aware of the importance of the five senses in reaching Gen-Y’s.  Gen-Y’s must be sold on the great taste, texture, aroma, look and quality of a food product (taste, smell, sight and touch).  By the same token, Gen-Y’s would be attracted to a new electronic music gadget by its overall design, sound quality and features (sight, touch and hearing).  The Internet with its compelling digital imagery, video and sound is a natural media channel for Gen-Y’s as it offers elements of all five senses.  Gen-Y’s are among the heaviest users of the Internet for news, information, entertainment and interacting with others.	Gen-Y’s are social animals so marketers must incorporate social elements into the design of a business whether it is a website, retail or eating establishment.  Businesses are no longer solely for shopping, eating or drinking, but places to meet friends, hangout, read a book, surf the Net, socialize and exchange gossip.  Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are excellent examples of social networking sites that appeal to a Gen-Y’s need to network and interact with others.  Starbucks, Abercrombie & Fitch, Borders, Steve Madden, American Eagle and Best Buy are excellent examples of retail establishments that incorporate social design elements like cool and trendy store interiors, the latest in fashion and electronic gadget’s, piped in music, visual displays, and in-store food and beverage facilities.
In the case of a business establishment, whether brick-and-mortar or digital, Gen-Y’s must be sold on the convenience, product selection, atmosphere and total experience that the business establishment offers (sight, hearing, smell and touch).  The success of eBay, Starbucks, Facebook, Myspace and Borders are excellent examples of brands that have capitalized on the importance of the five senses in developing successful products and services.	Gen-Y’s are notorious multi-taskers who communicate with their friends and relatives by telephone, text messaging, instant messaging (IM) and mobile devices like smartphones and iPhones. They interact by sharing video’s and music, rating products, services and business establishments and posting comments over the Blogosphere. Gen-Y’s have an insatiable desire to interact with others and are the driving force behind online social networks like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook and Starbucks.
GENERATION-X MARKETING APPROACH
Gen-X marketing requires elements of high perceived value, quality, purity, less hype, more facts and a marketing message that is honest and straightforward.  Gen-Xers are cynical about advertising.  Less likely to be taken in by fads or product hype, and more likely to say, “show me”.  Their tastes and preferences overlap with both Gen-Y’s and Boomers, making them an elusive target.  They are less brand loyal that boomers, and more likely to experiment with other brands, new drinks and foods.  Gen-Xers are very technologically savvy.  They tend to be first adopters of the latest electronic gadgets like iPods and iPhones.  Gen-Xers support social causes like the environment and world hunger.  They enjoy social events, leisure activities and get-togethers with family and friends.  They are known as the “family-first” generation because they value their family over their jobs.  Success with Gen-Xers requires a marketing approach with less hype, more facts and a social approach centered around quality of life, social causes and importance of friends and family.
Less Hype, More Facts Approach	The Social Approach
Gen-Xers are interested in less hype and more facts and figures.  They are interested in knowing the nutritional value of a food product: How many calories, how much fat, cholesterol and nutrients a product contains.  Gen-Xers look for products with high perceived value and quality like the fuel-efficiency of Japanese cars and durability of German-made automobiles. Gen-Xers take delight in experiencing new foods, beverages, films and products.  It is best to deal with Gen-Xers in an honest, respectful and straight forward manner.  Gen-Xers seek products and services that are relevant, solve a problem or fill a real need in the marketplace and offer a high value-added component: Superior quality, design, durability, features and convenience.	Gen-X have a social need that is grounded in placing a premium on quality of life, leisure activities, social causes, strong parental and family values and spending time with family and friends. They enjoy family get-togethers, activities and socializing with their friends.    Marketers must incorporate social elements whether they are an online, retail, eating or entertainment establishment.  Businesses that have succeeded in doing this include McDonald’s (children’s playgrounds), Las Vegas Hotels & Casino’s (electronic games, rides and attractions), Disneyland (family-oriented rides and attractions), Gymboree (early childhood development programs), Target (family-oriented merchandise and refreshments), DisneyOnlineForFamily.com (Disney entertainment for the entire family) and BabyCenter.com (Young mothers with infants),    Advertising that works with Gen-Xers include ads depicting the crash safety of Volvo cars and high performance of Michelin tires fit in perfectly with Gen-X’s strong parental values.

Advertising & Promotions Strategy

Although there is some overlap between Gen-X and Gen-Y, they differ in lifestyle and are difficult to reach through traditional media channels, requiring: 1) commercial messages and content that is relevant to their social and psychological needs, 2) selecting the appropriate media channel for each group and 3) carefully targeting our advertising and promotions to insure we reach them most cost-effectively.   

REACHING GENERATION-Y

MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Internet Advertising - Gen-Y’s spend more time online than watching television, reading publications or newspapers.  62% of Gen-Y’s watch TV programs episodes online. Gen-Y rank the highest in joining social networking communities, viewing and uploading online videos, downloading music, playing online games sending instant and text messages and reading online blogs.  Popular Gen-Y sites include: Online Social Communities:  MySpace , Facebook and Bebo Video Sharing: YouTube, Veoh, Break, ManiaTV, Hulu  and MetaCafe. Online News and Information: Diggs, Technorati and StumbleUpon. And a large broad array of Blogs.  Marketers can achieve success reaching Gen-Y’s by targeting websites where they are likely to congregate and socialize.	Viral Marketing - Gen-Y’s go online and rely on word-of-mouth to obtain product and information, so it is vital that firms have a great website that is fully-optimized for search engines and listed in all the major search engines. Firms should have a promotional page on popular social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube. Street Marketing – Gen-Xers enjoy new experiences and street marketing is a great way to create marketing buzz and reach them face-to-face. Street marketing include neighborhood promotional stunts, free product samplings, and rollouts in specific venues (street fairs, music festivals, concerts, college campuses, bars and clubs, etc).  This is also a great way to pass out flyers, free offers and discount coupons.
Contests and Sweepstakes – Gen-Y’s are wild about winning a contest or receiving a gift, especially something meaningful like an iPod, concert tickets, vacations, cell phones and FREE sample servings.  This is a great way to increase store traffic, create brand awareness and get them to try a product.    Flyers and Discount Coupons – These should be incorporated into a firm’s street marketing as a way to create excitement, interest and additional traffic. “ONE FREE PIZZA” and “BUY-ONE, GET ONE FREE” coupons work the best.
Paid Search – Nearly 90% of Gen-Y’s use online search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search  to find online information, news and entertainment sites.  Radio Advertising – Radio ranks third for Gen-Y’s in hours per week behind the Internet and TV as their preferred media.  Marketers should incorporate targeted radio into its media mix picking stations with the largest reach and most effective CPM’s.
Mobile Advertising – Gen-Y’s are the biggest users of iPhones, Smartphones and portable multimedia devices like iPods. Gen-Y’s prefer text message over email and this is a great way to reach them through one of their most preferred methods of communication.
LEAST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Television, Direct Mail, Publications and Newspapers – Gen-Y’s cannot be reached effectively through traditional marketing channels.  Direct mail, magazine ads, newspaper ads and television advertising does not work well with Gen-Y’s.  They do not respond to he marketing messages that appeals to their parents and grandparents.  A Gen-Y’s favorite TV programs  include sitcoms Friends and Seinfeld, reality TV shows Survivor and Project Runway, Animated TV shows The Simpsons, Music contest shows like American Idol, music video programs like MTV and TV comedy shows like The Daily Show With Stewart., just to name a few.

REACHING GENERATION-X

MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Internet Advertising - Gen-Xers are No 2 behind Gen-Y’s in spending time online than watching television and reading publications or newspapers.  57% of Gen-Xers watch TV programs episodes online. Gen-Xers are just behind Gen-Y’s in joining social networking communities, viewing and uploading online videos, downloading music, playing online games sending instant and text messages and reading online blogs. Gen-Xers over forty represent the largest segment online gambling. Popular Gen-X sites include: Online Social Communities:  MySpace , Facebook, Twitter and Bebo Video Sharing: YouTube, Hulu, Veoh, Break, ManiaTV  and MetaCafe. Online News and Information: Diggs, Technorati and StumbleUpon. And a large broad array of Blogs. Viral Marketing - Gen-Xers trust themselves and the opinion of their friends and rely testimonials and word-of-mouth on product and services. It is important that firms have a great website that is fully-optimized and listed in all the major search engines. Firms should have a promotional page on popular social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, and run online ads on popular video sharing sites like YouTube and Hulu.	Street Marketing – Gen-Xers enjoy new experiences and street marketing is a great way to create marketing buzz and reach them face-to-face. Street marketing include neighborhood promotional stunts, free product samplings, and rollouts in specific venues (street fairs, music festivals, concerts, college campuses, etc).  This is also a great way to pass out flyers and discount coupons.
Contests and Sweepstakes – Gen-Xers enjoy winning a contest or receiving a gift, especially something meaningful like an iPod, iPhone, concert tickets and FREE sample servings.  This is a great way to increase store traffic, create brand awareness and get them to try a firm’s products.    Flyers and Discount Coupons – These should be incorporated into a store’s grand opening and street marketing as a way to create excitement, interest and additional store traffic.  Women with children, in particular, are attracted to discount coupons if there is high perceived value in the offer. Offers that work most often include “ONE FREE DESSERT”, “BUY-ONE, GET ONE FREE” and “BUY-ONE-ADULT serving and receive ONE-FREE child serving.
Direct Mail – Direct mail works best for older Gen-X (Over 35) men and women, especially with children.  The offer must be compelling, without a lot of hype, and sold on the basis of high perceived value or in support of a social cause.  Some offers that work best include “FREE AIR FARE” or “10% OF PROFITS GOES TO SAVE-THE-WHALES”.                            Paid Search – Nearly 90% of Gen-Xers use online search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search to find information, news and entertainment sites.  Paid search is an effective way to reach Gen-Xers and drive traffic to a firm’s website.
Radio Advertising – Older Gen-Xers (Over 30) rank the highest in listening to the radio for music, news and information.  Marketers should incorporate targeted radio into its media mix, selecting stations with the largest reach and most effective CPM’s. Mobile Advertising – Young Gen-Xers (25-30), like their Gen-Y counterparts, are the biggest users of iPhones, smartphones and portable multimedia devices like iPods. Younger Gen-Xers prefer text message over email and this is a great way to reach them through one of their preferred methods of communication. Marketers should incorporate mobile advertising into its media mix.
LEAST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CHANNELS
Television, Radio, Direct Mail, Publications and Newspapers – Gen-Xers are stuck in the middle between Gen-Y’s and Boomers so there are some overlaps with both generations, making them an elusive target.  Younger Gen-Xers cannot be reached effectively using traditional marketing channels like direct mail, print ads, newspapers, radio and television advertising.  Older Gen-Xers (over 35) can be reached through direct mail, radio and television as their media tastes are similar to Boomers in many respects. Gen-Xers are impervious to the marketing messages that appeals to Boomers, who they treat with some resentment.  Favorite TV shows of Gen-Xers include prime-time shows like ER, CSI, Friends, reality TV shows like Survivor and The Apprentice, animated shows likeThe Simpsons, music video shows like MTV  and TV comedy shows like The Daily Show. With Stewart., and late night talk shows like David Letterman and Conan O’brien just to name a few.

I first developed my manifesto for marketing to Gen-X and Gen-Y in 2006/2007, at about the time that social networking really began to take hold, and I realized then that in order to successfully market to these two generatioins, a social approach was also needed.   So far those observations have proven to be correct.   Although my manifesto is albeit a bit dated, the basic concepts of neuromarketing work for all demographics.     

If you are marketing to Millennials or Gen-Xers you might be interested in reading some of the following blog articles:

• 9/24/10 - "IN ORDER TO ENGAGE WITH TODAY'S GENERATION Y YOU MUST MAKE IT AN EVENT"
• 10/1/10 - "GENERATION-Y IS QUITE LITERALLY A "WIRED" GENERATION OF TECH SAVVY AND SOCIAL NERDS"
• 12/18/10 - "MARKETER'S NEED TO CUT THE CLUTTER TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS WITH TODAY'S COLLEGE STUDENTS"

Courtesy of Tommy Toy, PBT Consulting

THE MARKETING TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE EXPLODES TO 9,932 SOLUTION PROVIDERS, INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION SETS IN

According to ChiefMartech, the 2022 marketing technology landscape, the total estimated number of marketing technology solution providers increased from 8,000 in 2020 to 9,932 or +24% in May 2022.  Here are the key you want to know:

• The number of solutions is now 9,932 — up 24% from 2020
• Here is a slide version of the image you can use in decks and content
• Here is a high-res PDF you can use for printing and zooming in
• Here is an accompanying State of Martech 2022 report

The wild-and-crazy 11-year progression of the martech landscape looks like this:

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Or, if you prefer a more quantitative view of the 6,521% growth over those 11 years:

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The moniker “Martech 5000” is no longer appropriate because by 2022 the marketing technology landscape has grown to nearly 10,000 solution providers, so the new name is now the “Martech Map.” 

ChiefMartech has launched martechmap.com (beta version) a new interactive site that is free to use, but you must first register online to gain access.  This lets you search, sort, and filter the entire marketing technology landscape for 2022.   You can search by keyword.  You can filter by a vendor’s HQ country.  You can rearrange the display, zoom in, and even create a PDF of your own.

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ChiefMartech lets users contribute to the data set — and encourages users to do so.  Find something wrong in the data?  Missing vendor?  Vendor that’s changed categories or gone away?  Let ChiefMartech know.  MartechMap is a community project, and ChiefMartech gladly celebrates all of the contributors to the beta version.

The massive scale and rapid rate of change of the martech industry and the wealth of solutions within it was no longer well-served by a once-a-year, static graphic. It’s a point in time, which is interesting to see year-over-year. But we want this community resource to be something that is updated on a more continuous basis.

By now producing the graphic algorithmically, it’s easy to release updates in a matter of minutes — versus the dark ages of hand-placing little logos manually on a slide (hats off to you, Anand Thaker and Jeff Eckman, for all your prior help with that!). By using a vendor’s favicon from their website, which we can refresh at any time, we also save both ourselves and vendors from the angst of outdated logos.

The aesthetic is different with this grid of favicon logos, but the practical benefits of instant updates weigh heavily in its favor. Just as every other aspect of marketing and martech is evolving, so too should the martech landscape.

State of Martech 2022 Report

Of course, one of the perennial reactions to the martech landscape is: how can there be so many vendors? How has this market not consolidated yet? Surely it’s destined to collapse, any minute now, right?

These are good questions to ask. I ask them myself all the time.

It’s worth noting that 972 vendors from the 2020 landscape were removed for 2022, either due to being acquired or some less happy exit from the market. That’s 12% churn from two years ago! The martech landscape does consolidate.

But at the same time, new vendors keep entering the market (and more who have been in the market keep getting discovered in our ongoing research). While 972 vendors were removed, a whopping 2,904 vendors were added, which brought the net total from 8,000 to 9,932.

Frans and I have several models and theses that offer some explanation to these dynamics that we see in the market. This year, we’ve included them — along with a bunch of other great data about stack adoption patterns — in a State of Martech 2022 report.

It’s free for you to download (completely ungated):

Click To Display PDF File

(As a bonus, the report also includes all of the entries to The Stackies 2022: Marketing Tech Stack Awards, so you can review examples of how other companies have combined martech solutions in their marketing stacks.)

The research for this project and the accompanying report was generously supported by these six sponsors. We would kindly encourage you to check them out:

• Learning Experience Alliance (formerly MarTech Alliance)
• OfferFit
• Workato
• SAS Customer Intelligence
• Amplitude
• Goldcast

In addition, we’ve created a “gratitude graphic” that reflects the many contributors to the martech landscape data set. We hope you’ll join them for a future update that includes contributions you decide to make.

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Merry #MartechDay to you — I hope you enjoy this new graphic, report, and interactive site.

COMMENTARY:  The marketing technology solutions sector has reached nearly 10,000 service providers spread over 6 major categories and 49 sub-categories.  The US and UK combined represent over 50% of the total number of martech companies.  Due to the rapid rate of growth, the martech sector is now undergoing a shakeout and industry consolidation. 

The 2022 Martech Map, has identified 9,932 martech solution providers through May 2022.  An interactive version of the martech search engine is available at martechmap.com.  The interactive martech search engine enables you to slice and analyze the landscape in a variety of dimensions.

There’s been considerable consolidation over the last two years. 

• 972 new martech solution providers were either acquired, disbanded, or pivoted to something different. 
• 2,904 new entrants, from startups and more mature companies offering a better martech service were added.

So between 2020 and 2022, there was a net gain of 1,932 firms added to the list.   

We are steadily adapting to an abundance of apps in the martech market sector. Connected ecosystems are growing around the major martech platforms, and a new generation of “aggregation” systems are bringing greater cohesion to internal tech stacks.

Martech is a vibrant, rapidly changing industry that requires a once-a-year update.  ChiefMartech gives you a dynamic visualization online that is continually updated with fresh data. By signing up for free on martechmap.com, you can now explore the latest version of the landscape at any time.  Hovering over a logo will reveal the name of the company and a brief description from their website or Twitter profile. Clicking on a logo will take you to their website.

You can also search and filter the landscape, looking for specific terms that appear in their
description, or narrowing the result by the HQ country.

Courtesy of an article dated May 4, 2022 appearing in ChiefMartec and an article dated May 3, 2022 appearing in MarTech.org

HOW TO DETERMINE PRODUCT MARKET FIT IN YOUR INDUSTRY AND HOW TO MEASURE IT

The lack of market need is the main reason for startup failure. Product-market fit is one of the most crucial elements needed to create a successful business. It indicates that people are interested in the company’s product and are willing to pay for it because the offering is better than the other alternatives. Due to this reason, finding a product-market fit should be among the first and foremost objectives for your business.

Snapchat is an excellent example of a startup that managed to find product-market fit. This resulted in more than 293 million daily active users and $2.5 billion in annual revenue since its initial launch in 2011. In 2012 Snapchat users were sharing over 20 million images per day or about 231 per second. 10 million Instagram users, in contrast, were sharing only 25 photos every second. During the early stage, the target audience of the startup consisted of bloggers and students. Snapchat quickly became popular at colleges and high schools through word of mouth. The company was gathering customer feedback and constantly improving the application, which was important in reaching product-market fit. 

Let us take a closer look at the concept of the product-market fit and the practical steps required to achieve it.

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What is a product-market fit?

Product-market fit is the degree to which the product meets the target consumers’ needs and fulfills the market demand. PMF occurs when the business owner develops a solution that fills a certain market niche and evokes the desire to buy it. Product-market fit is not a constant state. Instead, it can be described as the continuous process of adjusting to changing client needs. 

The term was coined by the co-founder of Benchmark Capital, Andy Rachleff, and later popularized by entrepreneur Mark Andreessen, the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. Rachleff’s idea was based on the study of the investing approach of Dan Valentine, venture capitalist and founder of Sequoia Capital. Andy Rachleff explains product-market fit as a combination of “the feature set you need to build, the audience that’s likely to care, and the business model required to entice a customer to buy your product.” Marc Andreessen  defines it as “being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.”

The alternative definition by Dan Olsen, the author of “The Lean Product Playbook”, says that the product-market is “meeting the underserved needs of target customers better than the competition”. Thus, we can summarize that product-market fit refers to the situation when the company provides value for a substantial number of customers who perceive the value with the effective delivery method, and differentiates itself from the competing companies. 

How to find a product-market fit?

The process of achieving a product-market fit differs for each company. Therefore, to create an outstanding product, you need to understand the problems your solution addresses and the issues your clients are trying to overcome with its help. So, the goal of finding product-market fit should be number one on your company’s priority list as it would dramatically increase the chances of business success. Despite the fact that the path to product-market fit is unique for each business, you can find it by focusing on the key areas and following several simple steps we will discuss below.

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Step 1. Determine your target audience

The first step in developing your product-market fit is to determine the target customers. They will represent the users who decide how well the product aligns with market requirements. The next task is to use market segmentation to later target customers more effectively by relying on their unique features, improving marketing campaigns and discovering more opportunities. Then you need to create buyer personas to ensure that your team’s efforts are tailored to your customers’ needs. Therefore, the main objectives of this step are to analyze your product or service, conduct a competitive analysis, segment your target market into several types of customers, and perform research.

Step 2. Talk to your customers

Gather feedback from your customers to identify their underserved needs and discover a suitable market opportunity. Determine the common challenges they face and how much they are willing to pay for you to solve their problems. The competition plays a huge role in the degree to which the product fits customer demands as they evaluate the solution in comparison to the alternatives.

If you want to improve the existing product, collect data from your sales and marketing departments to understand the recurring complaints. Face-to-face interviews are more effective than online surveys as they provide more useful information. 

Step 3. Define your value proposition

The value proposition is the most crucial aspect of your marketing message. It explains why your customers should purchase your company’s products instead of the competitors. A great value proposition is clear and understandable. The statement should be relevant to the target audience. Describe how your solution addresses customer problems and provide the set of advantages. To define your value proposition, you need to determine customers’ pain points, identify your product’s benefits, describe what value your solution adds to the market, connect it with the problems and make it unique.

Step 4. Specify your MVP feature set

The following step is to define the features that your minimum viable product (MVP) will include. If you add sufficient functionality to your product, you will be able to demonstrate the value to your customers, save time and money and leave space for improvement. MVP will help you determine the features your solution lacks or what can be done better. Moreover, you might understand that the customers will not use the specific function, so you can remove it. The primary objective is to continue adjusting the minimum viable product feature set until the potential customers approve it.

Step 5. Design your MVP

Once you have determined the MVP feature set, it is time to create the test version of your product, so your customers can provide feedback and valuable insights. Building the MVP prototype usually takes less time and effort than producing the working version of the minimum viable product. The prototype will brilliantly represent your product without the need to build it.

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Step 6. Test your MVP with customers and analyze feedback

The last step is to test the MVP prototype with target customers. The goal of MVP testing is to receive feedback from the audience, make improvements to the product and determine whether the idea is valid or not. The most efficient method of MVP testing is user interviews. First, provide the list of the problems your solution aims to solve and put open-ended questions to your customers. Then ask them to rank the issues and analyze their level of interest. Finally, present the MVP as the solution to the problem and offer people to try it. The other way to test your minimum viable product is to create a landing page demonstrating its features or promote the solution through advertising. This will help you to understand whether your MVP interests the target market. You can also test the prototype on crowdsourcing platforms. If the users like your idea, they would be willing to invest in the development of your product, so this would be the perfect indicator of the product-market fit.

After conducting tests: 

1. analyze the received feedback, 
2. identify similar answers and pay attention to common patterns, 
3. use the information received from the customers to modify the initial prototype and address consumer issues.

You might learn that a majority of your audience consider themselves too young or too old for your product. Then you can ask the respondents who they assume the product is intended for. The feedback will reveal how your product is perceived in the market. You might understand that your solution is more niche-oriented than you expected. In this situation, you need to return to step 1, review your customer profiles, and proceed from there. 

If the product is not right, but the audience is a fit, return to step 2 and gather feedback to understand what adjustments your customers would apply to your product to make it more appealing. Then, move to steps 3 and 4 to review your value proposition and minimum viable product features.

Netflix is a company that constantly adapts to changes, monitors trends and shifts in the market, and takes advantage of them. Netflix changed its business model multiple times, adjusting to user demand. In the early 2000s, Netflix achieved the product-market fit when the company positioned itself as the alternative to traditional DVD rental stores. Netflix started shipping DVDs by mail as part of its membership services and allowed clients to keep videotapes for an unlimited period of time. Later, when the DVD trend faded, the company turned into a subscription-based streaming platform and reached product-market fit owing to cheaper and better services. 

Step 7. Build the product and take it to the market

Prepare a product launch plan and create a marketing strategy to take advantage of the opportunity to promote your offering. The product launch event has a significant influence on market acceptance. It helps inform the clients that the product is available for purchase and introduces the solution to the market. With product launch, you will gather valuable information from early users, build anticipation and brand awareness. Create content that will align with marketing activities, such as landing pages, blog posts, and product tutorials. 

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Step 8. Improve product-market fit as you scale

Keep reviewing your product after it is launched. Take small risks and redesign the product in accordance with the customer base, competition, and the new needs of target audiences. Remove the elements that do not work, experiment with new functionality, and test the features on a small scale. Analyze qualitative and quantitative metrics, conduct customer surveys to adapt to changing market conditions, and stay ahead of the competition.

Product-market fit metrics and measuring

There are several quantitative metrics that will determine the percentage of customers who consider your solution as a ‘must-have’. We will discuss them further in greater detail.

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Growth rate

The growth rate will provide you with crucial information about your company’s performance over time. It is one of the essential metrics the investors examine before deciding whether to fund the company or not. To measure the product-market fit, you can analyze the growth in the number of users or revenue. The formula for calculating the monthly or annual growth rates is as follows:

Growth rate = (Period 2 – Period 1) / Period 1 * 100 

It is important to note that a high growth rate does not necessarily mean that you have achieved product-market fit (as it can be followed by a similarly high churn rate). Thus, you need to pay attention to various factors that may have led to this and take into account other metrics. In some cases, high growth rates can result from marketing activities and do not represent product-market fit. 

Churn rate

The churn rate is the number of customers who stop using your product over a certain time frame. With this metric, you can understand whether people are interested in your product or not. The churn rate varies depending on the type of business and its specifics. Newly established companies usually have higher churn rates compared to organizations that have been on the market for a longer time. You should inspect your monthly and annual churn rates to have a clear picture of your progress. The churn rate formula is: 

Churn Rate = (Lost Customers ÷ Total Customers at the Start of Time Period) x 100

Net promoter score

The net promoter score is a scale that ranges from -100 to 100. With this metric, you can estimate customers’ willingness to recommend your company’s products to other people. To calculate the net promoter score, you need to ask your customers a key question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend the product to a friend or a colleague?” Then the respondents are categorized into three main groups depending on the answer: promoters, passives, and detractors. Finally, you want to subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The final number will show you whether customers generally enjoy using your product. You may compare it to similar metrics in your industry and review it regularly to see if the satisfaction rate is improving.

Product-market fit examples

Now we will look at three successful companies that began their journey as startups but turned into global enterprises with a multi-million customer audience. We will consider how these companies managed to find their product-market fit and adapted to evolving market needs.

Spotify

The idea to create Spotify appeared after Napster’s collapse, and the sales plunge in the music industry as the users started downloading albums from illegal sources. Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek suggested the listeners the opportunity to consume high-quality music legally for a small fee. Now the platform has over 365 million active users.

The startup was created at the most opportune time when the other elements of product-market fit already existed. There was a target market with music listeners, distribution channels, and a lot of content. The platform provided consumers a way to listen to music without addressing any legal issues, resulting in a 20-30% annual growth rate.

Slack

Slack is a well-known messaging platform for business communication. Despite the fact that now Slack’s target customers are mostly enterprises, the company paved the way to product-market fit by targeting individual users. Between March 2020 and April 2021, Slack generated $902 million in revenue, but it all began with a startup that did not even have a sales team. 

At first, Slack’s founders were developing a role-playing video game. The messaging app was originally intended as a tool for internal communication. However, the team later realized that the solution perfectly fits into a free niche, while there are already many role-playing games on the market. The decision to give up the original idea in favor of better opportunity has brought over 12 million users by the end of 2020.

Google

In the early years, Google had a lot of competitors in the market. At that time, the search engines were making a profit from selling the advertising space next to search results. In 2003, Google leaders decided to introduce AdSense. This was a totally new concept that allowed to display the advertisements beyond the search page results. The technology analyzed the web pages and automatically displayed the relevant advertisements. 

Google discovered a gap in the market that no other search engine could fill and satisfied that need. In 2017, the annual revenue from AdSense amounted to $95 billion.

COMMENTARY:   Don Valentine, from Sequoia Capital might have coined the term "product-market fit".  While Marc Andreessen, from A16z popularised it as “being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” According to Andreessen, that is a moment when a product or service has its place in the market, thus enabling traction for the company offering that product or service.

 

Courtesy of an article dated April 4, 2019 appearing in CleverTap, an article dated Unknown appearing in Awware, an article dated June 16, 2021 appearing in HubSpot, an article dated February 18, 2017 appearing in Future.com,

 

HOW TO BUILD A CROWDFUNDING COMMUNITY TO SUCCESSFULLY FUND YOUR CROWDFUND CAMPAIGN AND SERVE AS BRAND ADVOCATES

In today’s economy, many people are launching new businesses, services and products with the help of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and even Patron. When using these platforms, community building for crowdfunding is essential; obviously, a big userbase means more funding and a higher chance of success.

But crowdfunding community other benefits, too. Your community can:

• Advocate your brand, business and products to their networks
• Provide a base for future marketing
• Provide a base for future crowdfunding

With so many benefits to cultivating a crowdfunding community, you’ll want to be prepared before launching a campaign.

PREPARING THE FOUNDATION OF CROWDFUNDING COMMUNITIES

Keep Focus on the Community

Your pitch shouldn’t just “sell” your brand, product or service to prospective investors and customers. It should do that while focusing on user benefit. You want to create a community to fund your venture, so deliver a bold vision of what the world could be—and how your community will play a role in bringing it about.

Basically, you don’t want to just focus on self-promotion. What’s in it for the user? Once you’ve established a vision, you can target like-minded users in your community building for crowdfunding efforts. Your pitch might also include suggested tweets, memes and content that funders can share to their own networks to further spread the message.

Identify Key Community Members when Building Your Online Community

Before you launch your campaign, you must lay the foundation for your community by identifying key community members. These individuals will support and boost your campaign from day one, ensuring it gets off to a healthy start. As far as community-building goes, they will be the first advocates to invite others in. Your friends, family and colleagues are good starting points. Consider giving them a list of goals and actions so they know how and where to support. These might be:

• A quota on users to engage per day, online or off
• On-brand community hashtags to use
• A quote on posts per social network promoting the campaign
• A list of key dates with their amount goals

In addition to this first-level network, you’ll want to seek out key stakeholders, notable investors and community leaders. Essentially, these are influencers you’ll want to enlist who can support your campaign and share it with their communities. You’ll want a small handful of these—about two to four—and they should also be on-board before your campaign launch.

By assembling this initial community, your campaign can start off with a bang. Having a substantial amount of money pledged from the beginning increases your optics; you’ll also have a dedicated team that will help community building for crowdfunding as they spread the word.

If your business has an established community already, you might lead up to the campaign with teases of exciting news. This builds enthusiasm so you can leverage the community for funding.

Online Communities for Crowdfunding Should Strike a Real Connection

Building crowdfunding communities is about forming relationships. Therefore, your campaign rewards should give supporters a tangible sense of playing a role in the brand or community. Media companies, for example, often offer producer credits to their supporters.

You might even allow backers to become a part of the production’s process. For example, a game company might offer a reward in which a supporter can design a character. A business might arrange for a supporter tier to meet the team or tour the company. Think of how you can truly involve your community—don’t just offer cool gifts, products or tokens of appreciation.

Using Social Media for Building Your Online Community

Choose a handful of social networks you’ll spread your campaign and message on. Once you’ve done this, tailor your message to those networks. For example, LinkedIn skews more professional within certain industries; Twitter, meanwhile, favors brevity and big thinking.

CROWDFUNDING COMMUNITIES DURING AND AFTER THE CAMPAIGN

Host an Event to Launch Communities for Crowdfunding

Events are a great way to build enthusiasm, expand your reach and grow your community. At your campaign’s launch, or throughout the campaign, host an event online or at a venue to attract attention. These events are celebratory and make your campaign more memorable. Seeing others in-person can encourage your supporters to put their money where their mouth is—and give your campaign public validation.

Push news of events and invites to your social channels and existing online communities. You might also consider a calendar of events and content which you can post. For example, try an “ask me anything” on Reddit half-way through the campaign to drive community engagement and address prospective backers’ concerns.

Stretch goals also provide an opportunity to engage your community. Tap into the userbase to ask for ideas they’d like as stretch goals. Provide incentives for backers to share the campaign with their friends to further keep them invested and expand your reach.

Stay Communicative & Show Appreciation for Your Crowdfunding Communities

Always be communicative! Don’t leave your community in the dark; keep them in-the-know every step through the process. Otherwise, you risk betraying their trust. Crowdfunding platforms commonly offer a blog where you can make announcements and show progress, but you should do this on social media and your website as well.

Finally, show appreciation for your online communities. This humanizes your brand with the community, but also provides an opportunity to strengthen your message. Highlight messages from community members, write about who inspires you or your idea, or share a heartfelt story about who helped you get where you are today. Whatever you do, bring it back to your campaign’s original vision and community’s shared values.

Keep Your Community Inviting

Finally, don’t forget to use comment moderation to make your community as inviting as possible. With a tool like Smart Moderation, you can unify comments across all your social platforms. You can also automatically moderate comments in accordance to your brand’s moderation approach.

With automated moderation, you can keep your community free from trolls, spam and abuse around the clock. Having such a system in place lets you respond more quickly to engagement. Because it’s important that you answer essential questions and respond to criticisms to gain support, you’ll need comment moderation to increase your focus on converting users.

COMMENTARY:   I have stated in previous posts about crowdfunding that one of the most important steps required for a successful crowdfunding campaign is developing a crowdfunding community or crowd.  Your crowd should consist of loyal supporters who have bought into your crowdfunding offering and are likely to serve as brand advocates who will spread the word concerning your crowdfunding campaign. 

It is vitally important that you develop a network of loyal supporters who love your product or invention and believe in your vision of the future.  This must be done early (four-to-six months) before you launch your crowdfunding campaign.  Remember, you may have a great product or invention, but without a crowd you are setting yourself up for failure.  I created a self-running slideshow about reward-based crowdfunding listed below.  You may enlarge or stop the slideshow at any time by clicking the screen.

Courtesy of an article dated January 30, 2018 appearing in Smart Moderation

WHAT IS DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING? AT A GLANCE INFOGRAPHIC

Data-driven marketing is the approach of optimising brand communications based on customer information. Data-driven marketers use customer data to predict their needs, desires and future behaviours. Such insight helps develop personalised marketing strategies for the highest possible return on investment (ROI).

Click To Image To Enlarge

Courtesy of an article appearing in Advertity.com

THE LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS AND WHY THEY ARE ESSENTIAL IN DRIVING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

 

Business intelligence and analytics are competitive necessities in today’s fast-moving, data-driven business world. In fact, more than half of organizations across industries are using business intelligence in some capacity to drive important initiatives like new revenue streams and increased efficiency.

Yet there remains a gap between those who use it and those who use it successfully. A recent survey conducted by Sisence found that 94% of respondents felt data was critical to their ongoing strategy, but only 24% believed their companies were using it effectively. So where is the disconnect?

One key factor to keep in mind is that while data is a powerful tool, it’s not universally applied. Organizations must understand the types of business intelligence and analytics solutions that exist and apply them in ways that add the highest strategic value to their companies.

We’ve put together this quick guide to help you understand exactly what business intelligence entails, the different ways companies can leverage it, and how to choose the tools that make the most sense for your business.

Quick Takeaways

• Business intelligence and analytics provides data-driven insights at a level and scope not capturable by the human brain alone.
• Companies leverage business intelligence in several critical ways including to identify problems earlier, improve operational efficiency, and refine marketing strategies with deep customer insights.
• Organizations should always choose business intelligence and analytics solutions with their specific priorities and needs first in mind.

What is business intelligence and why is it important?

Business intelligence (BI) involves the use of technology tools that enable data-driven decision making and actionable insights to help companies improve performance and identify new opportunities.  While business intelligence has been around for a few decades, it has recently reached new capability levels with the emergence of AI and machine learning.

An important component of business intelligence is its data visualization capabilities, which allow teams to take large and complex datasets and present them in digestible ways that make them usable for driving strategy.

Also of note is the difference between business intelligence and analytics. Business intelligence aims to leverage past and current data to inform real-time decision making and strategies. Analytics uses past data to explain current data, and it uses both past and current data to make predictions about what will happen in the future.

In other words, business intelligence involves looking at data to see what it’s saying and make decisions accordingly. Analytics dives deeper to understand why the data says what it says, and uses those deeper insights to forecast what’s likely to happen next. Both business intelligence and analytics are critical to gleaning complete insights.

Business intelligence and analytics are important because they augment traditional business decision making in a number of ways. First, they provide the necessary data insights for managers to make informed decisions. In today’s world, any company making decisions strictly from gut feelings or firsthand observations are going to fall behind.

Business intelligence also allows organizations to expand data insights beyond the c-suite and make them part of everyday business operations. When employees have access to the level of insight business intelligence and analytics can provide, they’re able to make better decisions, be more productive, and add more strategic value to the company in their roles.

How do companies leverage business intelligence and analytics?

There are many ways to leverage business intelligence and analytics in your organization. Here are some of the most common and valuable ways to do it:

Identify potential problems sooner – Data insights allow organizations to identify worrisome incidents earlier (like a dip in sales or revenue, a drop in retention, or prospect fall-off at a specific point in the customer journey) and address them sooner and more quickly, before they turn into larger issues.

Make better decisions – Data makes decisions more informed. Business intelligence and analytics, in short, go beyond the capacity of our human minds and help us make decisions that account for larger trends and insights we just couldn’t capture without technology. For instance, it would be great for a telecom company to know the future potential of 5G so that they can come up with competitive tactics and pricing strategies.

Improve operational efficiency – BI tools help companies make smart strategic decisions about the future, but they also offer insight into daily operations that help companies make adjustments to increase productivity and daily performance.

Increase marketing effectiveness – Modern technology has given us unprecedented insights into consumer and customer behavior, and business intelligence and analytics tools are critical to accessing them. For example, Zoom took to new age marketing methods to reach consumer households in a saturated video conferencing market.

See larger trends – With BI tools, companies can access and analyze bigger data sets and see larger market and industry trends. These insights contribute to smarter competitive analyses and a better understanding of market position. 

Choosing business intelligence and analytics solutions

So how do you choose the right BI and analytics solutions for your business? First, it’s important to know what’s out there. Business intelligence tools have a variety of capabilities, including data mining, data visualizations, text mining, KPI reporting and more. Most top business intelligence solution providers package all or most of these capabilities into one tool so that companies can use it in ways that benefit them. 

To choose the tool that’s best for you, there’s one key strategy to keep in mind: think first about your company’s priorities and needs, then choose the product that offers the highest value in those specific areas. Simply choosing the solution with the most features or the highest brand awareness is likely not going to add the most possible value to your BI and analytics efforts.

Here’s an overview of the top business intelligence and analytics solutions on the market right now:

COMMENTARY:  As you can readily see from the above post, business intelligence and data analytics are essential in order to develop valuable insights about consumers (and business leaders) and management the entire marketing processes of a data-driven organization. 

Business intelligence is key to monitoring business trends, detecting significant events, and getting the full picture of what is happening inside your organization thanks to data. It is important to optimize processes, increase operational efficiency, drive new revenue, and improve the decision-making of the company.

Courtesy of an article dated April 13, 2022 appearing in Stream By AlphaSense

and an article dated April 22, 2021 appearing in HevoData

 

MARKETING STRATEGY VS MARKETING PLAN: THE DIFFERENCE AND TIPS FOR BOTH

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy is a document that answers the big questions—what you offer, who your audience is, what your company stands for, brand guidelines, what niche or industry you play in, and who your main competitors are. It can include less or more information than that, but its purpose is to be a sort of lighthouse, helping you keep your marketing focused on the bigger picture.

Marketing strategies are always rooted in what your overarching business goals are. If your business needs to increase revenue by 25%, then your marketing strategy would explain how marketing will help achieve those goals from a high-level point of view.

When writing a marketing strategy, do not—I repeat—DO NOT go into uber-specific marketing tactics. That’s for later. On the flip side, you should be asking the right kinds of questions.

What Is a Marketing Plan?

Your marketing plan, based on your marketing strategy, dives into the specifics—what channels and tactics you’re using, which segment of the audience you’re targeting, when initiatives are occurring, and how you’ll measure success.

Compared to your marketing strategy, your marketing plan is more about which tactics, campaigns, initiatives, and promotions you’ll run in a certain amount of time. Marketing plans can range from three months to a year, and should remain semi-flexible in case marketing needs to shift priorities.

MARKETING STRATEGY VS. MARKETING PLAN

To help visualize all of this, we’ve created a graphic that explains the core differences between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan.

In our experience, the marketing strategy shouldn’t change as much as your marketing plan. If it does, it’s almost impossible to gain any real traction or measure the impact of your marketing on the business. That said, you’ll probably need to revisit your marketing strategy each year, whereas you’ll be executing against your marketing plan regularly.

At this point, you might be thinking, “this seems like A LOT.” It is, which is why strategies and plans are often broken down into smaller disciplines within marketing (think: content, customer acquisition, customer retention, and more). Let’s look at an example.

An Example in Action: Content Marketing

Most marketers are familiar with content marketing, so let’s use it as an example. Like I mentioned earlier, strategies address high-level issues whereas plans show how you’re going to execute.

CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY

In this case, your content marketing strategy would answer those big questions discussed above. Questions like:

• Who should we be writing to?
• How will content marketing support our business goals?
• How much money can we spend on creating content?
• Who are our content competitors?
• What tone do we want to come across in our content?

The role of the content marketing strategy isn’t to point out every single topic you’re going to write about or even what your specific KPIs for the upcoming year are going to be. Instead, it’s supposed to give context to why you’re investing in content marketing, who you’re targeting, what content mediums you’re going to use (generally), and more.

CONTENT MARKETING PLAN

Once you have your strategy set, your content marketing plan should explain how you’re going to attack the problem. This is where you’ll document content marketing goals and KPIs, what resources you plan on creating, when you plan on creating them, who will be involved in the process, how you’ll be promoting each piece of content, and more.

There’s more to content marketing plans than an editorial calendar, but your editorial calendar is a huge part of your plan. It tells everyone what topics your content is addressing, where it’s being published, when it’s being published, which channels you’ll promote it through, and the goals it should be aiming to hit.

Tips for Creating a Stellar Marketing Strategy or Plan

Whether you’re focusing on the overarching strategy or getting into the fine details, there are a few things you need to keep in mind throughout the journey that will help produce something of real value for your organization or team.

TIP #1: DOCUMENT YOUR PLAN/STRATEGY

This sounds obvious, but it is oh-so important. Enter impactful stat—marketers who document strategy are 538% more likely to report success than those who don’t. That’s a real number. Write your plan down. Even if you don’t think it’s 100% correct.

As marketers, we want so desperately to get everything right that it often has the opposite effect—we’re paralyzed. You can go back and adjust your plan or strategy as necessary, but it starts with actually having a plan or strategy. Plus, without a documented vision for the future, it’s much harder to gain buy-in from your co-workers and miscommunication ensues.

TIP #2: COLLABORATE WITH OTHERS

You don’t have to do this alone. Nor should you. Even if you’re legitimately the only person in your marketing department, you can ask your marketing friends at different companies for some insight. If all your friends sadly work in sales (jk, jk) you can even gain some perspective from co-workers in different departments. They might not give you the best “marketing” ideas, but they might ask good questions and prove to be good sounding boards.

There are tons of positives when it comes to collaborating with others. A few I like are gaining new perspectives, considering other ways to solve the problem at hand, gaining feedback, and the efficiencies that come with asking people that may have done something similar in the past.

TIP #3: MAKE IT CLEAR. MAKE IT REALISTIC.

There’s no problem shooting for the moon. But if you create a marketing plan or strategy that requires 10 people to execute and you only have two sad interns, then it’s not all that helpful. You’ll just end up with a ton of ideas but no idea which ones to work through.

A wise person once said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” Try your best to paint a clear picture that’s based in reality.

Don’t Let the Scary Marketing “Strategies” Overwhelm You

To play on even more cliches, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Try your best to avoid paralysis by analysis, and instead tackle your strategy or plan one step at a time.

And if you don’t think documenting your marketing plan or strategy is important, think again. Remember: marketers who document strategy are 538%(!) more likely to report success than those who don’t.

Finally, one last reminder that for those who can't wait to dig in and start planning, we created a marketing toolkit that allows you to work through building your very own marketing strategy. Happy planning!

Courtesy of an article dated September 21, 2020 appearing in Element Three Blog

 

 

DIGITAL BRANDING STRATEGIES REQUIRE MESSAGES AND MARKETING THAT IS RELEVANT AND RESONATES WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

The necessity of branding in the digital age is as important as branding itself.  We have already seen what branding is in “Brand Guidelines and Why Your Business Needs Them?”   In short, a brand comprises of all the elements such as the logo, color palette, typography, taglines, symbols, etc. that help you differentiate your brand from the others.  It could be a product, service or even just a concept that can be communicated to the public to make you stand out from the competitors in the 
marketplace. 

The methodology of creating a unique and distinctive personality of any product with the help of various elements is known as Branding.  Similarly, branding in the digital age, which is also called as Digital Branding, is a brand communication strategy that is implemented with the use of the internet and digital marketing to enhance a brand’s attributes, establish their presence and promote the brand.  It gets its roots from direct marketing and is done via certain digital platforms such as the internet itself, mobile applications, social media and most importantly, digital media content.  It also comprises of all the elements such as the logo, color palette, typography, taglines, symbols, etc.  The content is in reference to blogs, organic videos, e-mailers, website content, etc. with its overall appearance as well, that appeals to your target group.

Developing your brand strategy involves two phases:  brand development and brand management. (Click Image To Enlarge) 

Whether it is traditional branding, or digital, successful branding can only be reflected on the target consumer’s perception about your brand. This successful branding will help you enhance your brand positioning in the minds of the consumers.  Hence, on the digital platforms, it is important to strategize your communication in a manner that resonates with the positioning that you wish to have. Due to digital marketing and social media, it has become easier to connect and interact with the consumer online, but it has also become easier for the consumer to change his perception about you as well. To avoid this, it is important to stick to the brand guidelines, that defines the tone, color, typography and the overall appearance of your brand, even it if is to be done digitally. There cannot be any kind of inconsistency with reference to the branding tools that are used even traditionally. Your brand should have utmost consistency on all of the digital platforms, which increases your credibility and appeal, and also increases consumer loyalty.

Importance of Digital Branding:

• Autonomous Consumers: With oceans of information flowing everyday on the digital platform, the consumer is often left in dilemmatic situations, especially in case of products and services. The consumers are often “spoilt for choice”, which essentially means that you have to make your brand stand out in terms of your product and service offerings as compared to your competition. The average consumer is smarter now, due to the information about all products and services available at his/her fingertips.
• Change in Consumer Behaviors: The digital age has eradicated all kinds of geographical barriers in the world today. Due to this, social trends change almost every day, which directly affect the consumer’s behavior as well. The average consumer will still desire new products and services, but their social circles, perception, psychology and research will change their decisions very quickly, which means that your brand’s communication approach has to change with the trends as well, to stay ahead of the competition.
• Lesser Importance to the Funnel Model: The funnel model is a consumer’s purchase journey that follows the sequence of awareness, opinion, consideration, preference and finally the purchase. Traditionally, a consumer follows this journey and brands integrate their communication in such a manner that this funnel model is smooth. But in the digital era, the interactivity with a brand is extremely high and directly affects the purchase decision.
• Engagement: Digital branding’s greatest factors are the levels of engagement and interactivity that it allows between the brand and the consumers. A consumer will definitely prefer a brand that “connects”. This requires the brand to socially engage and provide interactive content through blogs, infographics, videos, etc. regularly, as it appeals to the consumer very well.

Digital Branding, just like offline branding, has a process that is followed. This process is in such a way that the brand establishes its distinct presence and personality on the digital platforms, and makes itself stand out from the rest.

Following is the process:

• Target Group: In the digital era, identifying your target group has a somewhat different approach to it. As the consumer is present on roughly 250 digital platforms today, it is important to understand and map the consumer’s journey, to understand their behavior and segment them accordingly to match the category your offering fall into. This includes specific and detailed research that help you indentify certain factors such as the consumer’s demographics, income, behavior, age, gender, etc.
• Brand Values: Your brand values are the factors that drive you to excellence in product and service offerings. Clearly defining your core values and mission for your brand help you remain consistent in your communication processes and implement those values in it. Having a definitive mission and core values help consumers feel connected to your brand and it appeals to them, especially if the values resonate with their own. It has also become easier to reflect the same values in your digital communication through blogs, videos, social media, etc.
• Brand Positioning: Brand positioning is the influence and impact of your brand in the minds of the consumers. It helps them make a perception of your brand, and gives you a competitive edge in an already established market. If your brand has been successfully positioned, especially on the digital platforms, it gains certain popularity through word of mouth and the most important factor of digital media — virality. Due to this, it becomes much easier to add new products to your offerings if the consumer already trusts your brand.
• Brand Identity: Your identity entails your message, personality, name, logo, etc. and anything that will help the consumer recognize your product first in the digital market. Consumers today tend to buy products that enhance and uplift their own personality. Integrating a strong brand identity gives your brand very high recognition in a market that already has products that are similar to yours. For a consumer that sees thousands of brands on his screen, your brand identity is what will make him consider you first. Brand names and logos are also equally important as they increase the brand’s recall level. Your brand name should resonate with your personality and identity, and also the kind of products and services that you are offering. Your logo is your greatest persona. With successful branding, consumers can identify your product on any digital platform by just looking at the logo, and it also gives certain credibility to it.
• Brand Objectives: Now that you are on digital platforms, what is it that you want to do? What are your goals and what are you promising to your target group? Your brand must have a tagline that is extremely crisp, memorable and that resonates with your personality. This same slogan can deliver or showcase your brand’s promise, and this is where you as a brand position yourself in the market. If the consumers are clear with your objectives, you will most likely be the go-to brand for them.
• Color Palette: Your color palette distinctly represents your brand’s visual identity. There are certain combinations of colors that help you position yourself and abstractly talk about your brand values, and also attract a certain niche group of people. This color palette helps you remain consistent on any digital platform and provides authenticity. Colors themselves hold meaning and carry a message.

All these factors help you successfully build a brand in the digital age today. Consumers are always looking for engaging content to interact with, and the digital era has changed the way the consumers think and behave, and also the way the brand approaches them. It has become extremely vital to have a digital presence, regardless of the brand’s offerings.  

Courtesy of an article dated September 30, 2019 appearing in Interics Designs