The Shift Towards Digital Branding

The Shift Towards Digital BrandingBy Zahra Karim

What is a

Digital Branding What is it?

Marketing that makes use of electronic devices like computers, smart phones, tablets, and game consoles to engage with stakeholders and customers

Applies to technologies or platforms such as websites, email apps, and social networks

Imagine this… A start up company that focuses on party

printables- A Personalised Affair Based in the UK Wants to extend their reach to worldwide

stakeholders Has a (very small) budget of $100k to advertise and

get their brand “out there”

Where to start? The first step to explore options

What are the most common sites/avenues that can be utilized to create a digital identity for a brand? YouTube ads Facebook Pinterest Twitter Instagram Personal Blog/ Website

YouTube YouTube

YouTube advertising is pretty unique since it allows you to select a target audience by gender, age, interests, and location

It’s simple- only requires three steps Upload your ad (video) Create an Adwords account

This is where you can manage the ads and check results Launch the ad

TypesIn Slate

In Display

In Stream

In Search

Budgeting Cost

The cost of an ad is calculated per view Each view can range between .10 and .30 depending

on the type A Personalised Affair chooses the .20 ad and budgets

$10,000 to reach 50,000 potential customers

Facebook Facebook

These ads allow you to set a “daily” or “lifetime” budget as to how much you want to spend on your advertising

You will be charged per click that the ad receives but this will never exceed your budget that you have set

There are different types of “bids” to choose from CPM (cost per mille) CPC (cost per click) CPA (cost per action)

Budgeting Cost

A Personalised Affair decides to set a lifetime budget of $30,000

They allocate a large amount of money to this avenue of advertising since they feel that their main target audience of middle aged females are most active on this social media site

They also choose the CPM option since their ad includes their website and they are just working on getting their name “out there”

Pinterest Pinterest

Until recently Pinterest did not allow advertisers Now they offer the option of posting a “sponsored

pin”

Pinterest These pins pop up in search results, so they reach

the people that are looking for a topic similar and related to that of the company that is sponsoring the ad

This also makes it feel more natural, not so much of an advertisement which can be annoying to users

The con is that they don’t stand out much from a normal pin since they look the same

Twitter This is what a twitter ad

looks like

There are two types of Twitter advertising-

Promoted accounts

Promoted Tweets

Twitter Twitter allows you to track the components of your ads or

tweets and learn more about the behavior of your target audience

You aren’t charged until action is taken- organic activity is free!

When someone retweets, replies, or favorites your tweet or ad that’s when you’re charged

You set a budget, once it’s reached Twitter will automatically stop showing your ad

Instagram This symbol tells you that the photo you are viewing

is an ad

Instagram Instagram uses information about your interests based on

Facebook (their sister company) and their site to determine which ads would be relevant to the user

Instagram ads are fairly new (like Pinterest) but show a lot of promise- Micheal Kors was the first to post a sponsored ad on Pinterest and it got them 33,000 more followers and 370% more likes than their non sponsored photos

Personal Blog/ Website Advertising on via networks like the ones discussed

can be very helpful but it is equally important to have a website for a user to go to in order to get more information about the business, costs, and other general info

Personal Blog/ Website Costs associated with a personal website-

Domain Name- $10-$15/month SSL certificate- $300/year Hosting- $40-$200/year Content Delivery Network- $50-$250/year Development tools or templates- $100-$200 Design- $500-$1600 Development- $600-$2000 Maintenance- $500-$1800/year Payment Processing- $250/year

Budgeting Youtube- $10,000

Facebook- $30,000

Pinterest- $20,000

Twitter- $10,000

Instagram- $15,000

Personal website- $15,000

Conclusion The move towards digital branding has been recent but very

quick

Danny Wong, the brand manager at Blank Label’s Group says: Branding campaigns work digitally- better than they did pre-

web because you can create a cross-channel series of “touch points” with your customers before they become your customers

There is an old saying that states that someone needs to see or hear about your company atleast three times before they consider trusting your brand and with digital marketing even small businesses like A Personalised Affair and many more can create that base with customers on a tight budget

Questions What are some key differences between what traditional

branding used to be and what digital branding is? What are the pros and cons of each type?

Of the hosts and social media sites described which do you think is the best and why? Of the hosts and social media sites described which do you think has the largest reach and why?

What do you think the future holds for digital branding? Base the answer to this question off of what changes are present between traditional branding and what branding is today?