Despite popular belief, digital marketing and digital branding are not quite the same thing – and yet, you need both in order to find success online.
On a global scale, roughly 75% of the world’s population uses the internet on a daily basis. From staying connected with friends, attending work meetings, getting directions and even ordering our weekly groceries, there’s almost nothing that can’t be done online.
In the world of business, avoiding the digital revolution ultimately means selling yourself short. The era of print, radio and television advertising might not be completely finished, but these mediums certainly don’t have the same star power as they once did. To generate new customers – and stay in touch with existing ones – the answer is the internet.
While this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, even experienced professionals tend to use digital marketing and digital branding as interchangeable terms. While they may have similarities, understanding their key points of difference is crucial when it comes to getting seen online.
The Difference Between Digital Marketing And Digital Branding
In the most basic of terms, branding is all about who you are as a business, and marketing is how you promote your business by including your branding. When applied to the digital space, it simply means how the two work together to present your brand or business online to the general public.
Digital branding goes far beyond a company’s logo and includes tone of voice, colours, fonts and overall consistency. These elements lay the foundation for how audiences talk about companies, how they feel about them, and can influence and even harness the all powerful ‘word of mouth’ marketing strategy.
In addition, your company’s digital branding should be incorporated into your social media strategy, as you need to be easily identifiable to consumers who have come to know, love and even respect your company and the content you produce.
In contrast, digital marketing covers a much bigger scope, but is equally as important. Although the concept is as simple as promoting products or services on the internet or other online based technologies, small business owners have an enormous range of avenues to choose from. A safe rule to consider is that if the internet powers the advertising, then it can be considered as a form of digital marketing.
Once you have successfully developed your digital branding as a tool to present a valuable business identity that customers can easily recognise in a crowded market, the logical next step is to use this online personality to promote your goods, services and overall business. Examples of effective partnerships between digital branding and digital marketing include strategies like the below.
Your Business Blog – As one of the key pillars of good SEO – or the process of getting discovered via search engine results on platforms like Google – brands who prioritise blogging have reported up to thirteen times the return on their investment. Not only does this digital marketing method yield new website visitors through search engines, but you’re able to develop the tone of voice of your company through the inclusion of digital branding.
Social Media Marketing – Regardless of whether your preference is LinkedIn, Instagram or even TikTok, digital branding is crucial for finding success on social media. Using social media to attract both paid and organic traffic is essential for any digital marketing strategy, but consistency through the inclusion of your digital branding is just as important. Audiences need to be able to identify your business with ease, and in turn, come to trust you.
Email Subscribers – Anyone who has experimented with email marketing will tell you that actually getting a subscriber to open their commerce email is often one of the hardest parts of this digital marketing strategy. By failing to include digital branding, the reader may not even recognise that it’s your business who’s checking in with them, and could accidentally write you off as spam. In addition, make sure you reward their attention with high quality content.
Mastering the world of digital marketing and digital branding isn’t easy for the unfamiliar, so if you’re new to this arena, it’s always a good idea to double check if you’re eligible for any state or federal business grants.
In addition, enlisting the help of the professionals is often the most cost effective approach when it comes to growing your brand online, especially if you’re a small business owner who’s already running short on time, energy or resources – but where do you find them?
The Key To Good Marketing Is Great Content
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as blog articles, social media posts, videos and even animated Instagram stories. By using this model, we believe that it enables us to produce high quality content with faster delivery times.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
