Digital Marketing and Brand Building

"Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has rightly said.

In the fast-changing world of marketing, brands capture the attention and concern of most people. With the progress that social media is making, the need to offer excellent marketing services is increasing. Branding is crucial for any company because it is the identity of your business. With branding, as a marketer, you not only give a name to a business but also encourage awareness about your business among the target audience.

Here we shall talk about how digital marketing services just like content marketing, are playing a vital role in brand building and product marketing. Though content marketing is a digital marketing tactic that works for all the industries we will broadly discuss it for the retail and manufacturing sectors.

Imagine when a new FMCG product is launched in the market. What do you think is the first thing that the audience wants to know? Customers will not take long to google the product for reviews, ingredients, and how to use it. Similarly, when a new electronic gadget is launched in the market, customers begin to surf through different websites to learn more about the product features and specifications.

Customers always rely on the content existing on social media to learn about the brands and to be in touch with them. Digital marketing has changed the marketer's outlook towards brand building. There are two types of businesses, a brand, and a commodity. People pay for the brand and bargain for the commodity. You need to decide which category you want your business to be in. Content marketing has taken a pivotal role in digital marketing. Web content serves to be the first customer (user) and an online guide for different products and services. The retail and wholesale industry is going through a dramatic industry shift with more people buying online instead of in-store.  Hence, offline marketing has taken a backseat. To stay relevant and in business, the retail and wholesale industry must make sure they have a strong backing of a productive digital marketing strategy. 

Digital marketing trends in FMCG are shifting the focus to creating user-centric content that brings actual value to consumers' lives.

L'Oréal's strategy is to connect with its customers through blogs along with advertisements on Facebook and other such social media platforms. Whenever a L'Oréal product hits the market, customers look for blogs and review videos. People prefer online review videos as their product guide. Influencer marketers also post blogs on product reviews which is considered to be a much more effective inbound marketing activity.

Likewise, when an electronic gadget like an Apple watch is launched in the market, customers tend to scroll through the blogs to learn about its features and specifications before they make a buying decision. People also go through product videos like VLOGs to know the product. These informative blogs and other such video marketing activities are like the first product manuals for people.

Clever use of content marketing is essential because it helps establish your authority in the space. For example, Johnson & Johnson created BabyCenter.com, a website for moms to share information and engage them through helpful forums. While not overtly as a part of Johnson & Johnson, all ads displayed on BabyCenter.com were for the brand. This search engine activity allowed Johnson & Johnson to build a strong community of moms they could tap into to sell their products. This kind of user-focused marketing is unique to digital marketing and helps brands promote their products more effectively than ever before.

While it's essential to build a brand, the main focus should be on maintaining it and keeping your potential customer constantly engaged. For instance, Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder digital advertising made them lose much of its market value. Gillette too faced a backlash from many because of its controversial ad of 2019. Gillette has stated that the idea behind the digital marketing campaign was to, 'challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man.' And while many praised their message, others found it offensive and degrading.

Brands should motivate, inspire not only the current but also future generations. They should connect with peoples' lives. Companies like Nike, Disney, Coke, Apple, etc. have built strong legacies owing to their core values. One of the greatest jobs of marketing the world has ever seen is the brand Nike. Nike sells shoes and yet when you think about the brand, you feel a different connection. In their ads, they don't ever talk about the product but they honor great athletes who they believe they are or aspire to be. Their commercials never forget to make a social statement. Such a marketing strategy never fails to amuse the audience thus keeping them interested and eager about their products. 

A digital marketing company serves B2B companies through brand awareness and demand generation services along with a great user experience which builds brand loyalty in a world full of options. The digital channel is borderless and it brings more to digital advertising. Digital retail marketing is transforming the advertising sector and has become the fastest-growing marketing technique in the global advertising market. Also when a manufacturing company employs a digital strategy aligned with its business goals, it can increase their brand awareness and attract a wider audience. Thus digital marketing companies help businesses increase brand awareness, generate more leads through the SEO, and improve customer engagement.