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Why a strong brand identity is important as part of your online marketing strategy

What is brand identity?

To begin with, it is necessary to have an understanding of what an actual brand identity is. Brand identity is the collection of various brand elements a company has created in order to portray themselves to the consumer. Within the marketing industry, brand identity has become somewhat of an interchangeable term with brand and branding but each has their subtle differences.

Brand – Perception of a company in the eyes of the world

Branding – Marketing practice of shaping a distinctive brand

Brand identity and a strong awareness of brand perception is a crucial component in a well-rounded digital marketing strategy. Amongst the many benefits a well-crafted brand identity can bring, I have listed 4 of the most important and sometimes overlooked benefits of doing this well.

1. Trust

Whether you’re generating leads or driving transactions, trust is a crucial element which can sometimes remain overlooked. Trust in a brand can be defined as the product of experience and reliability. These two contributors remain a consistent characteristic of strong brand identities and this theme should be voiced throughout a brand’s digital marketing strategy.

Every sales journey requires a certain amount of trust to be maintained between the prospect and a company, once trust has been earnt this can become one of a company’s most valuable assets when looking at growth.

Brand identity plays a major role in how the development of trust between a visitor and a company is maintained. The delivery of intangible brand elements such as core values, unique positioning and brand personality infuses an element of trust for new and existing visitors.

Trust in a brand is built slowly and every interaction with a visitor is an opportunity to build upon this, every touchpoint is adding to their assumption of who you are as a brand.

A strong and well-defined brand identity has a large influence on the perception of the site visitor and it is vital to nurture this perception as much as possible to ensure that trust is being built.

Within any digital marketing campaign such as PPC or social media, audiences can vary from people who are coming across your company for the very first time or already part of a highly targeted remarketing list. Regardless of where your users are within the buying cycle, there is still a requirement of trust before any sort of transaction can take place.

2. Improved Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

As the majority of online marketing strategies will be driving targeted traffic to a landing page, strong brand identity should be prevalent in its design.

A landing page is one of the most important stages of the online buying cycle as this is where the transaction will take place and a browser can successfully convert into a buyer.

Branding shapes almost the entire look and feel of a landing page and coupled with a strong, thoughtful content structure this is a recipe for increased conversions.

Giving thought to elements such as form design, content hierarchy and overall presence will allow you to create a well-converting landing page and begin to increase conversion rates.

Below is an example of a high-quality landing page from Lyft

So, what have they done to optimise results by the use of their brand identity?

• An excellently designed landing page with subtle use of brand colours, consistent typography as well as a familiar look and feel.
• Minimised questions on the form. They only request relevant information in a conversational way. Brand identity moulds communication with consumers and landing page copy must reflect this.
• Secondary form catering for people who are not yet ready to become a full driver. This shows potential drivers that Lyft understands their needs and their ability to help potential drivers gain more clarity as to the specifics of what Lyft is offering.

3. Increased Brand Appeal

Dependent on the industry vertical your company sits in, your interest in brand appeal may vary but for most companies, an increase in brand appeal is usually a good thing.

Huge debates have been waged on the back of this from consumers, the most popular is the Android vs Apple debate. One of the main arguments which influence many Apple advocates buying decisions is related to brand appeal and build quality.

Consumers will happily disregard cheaper alternatives and choose a sometimes technologically inferior and more expensive product purely based on its brand appeal.

A brilliantly executed brand identity will serve as the fundamental in crafting and building upon business appeal and access your company a new level of revenue, clients and business relations.

4. Internal Advocacy

Developing a brand identity can have a wealth of benefits for your company which affect consumer buying habits, but what is often overlooked are the positive benefits they will have within your internal marketing and sales teams.

As well as incorporating things such as a great logo, typography and image styles, a strong brand identity should address your core message, mission and unique positioning.

These questions serve as the fundamentals of any company with a strong brand identity and an awareness of this internally will go miles in improving internal morale and ensuring the entire team is working towards the same goal.

Moving Forward

Like anything focused on in isolation, it will only have a limited impact. The same is true of Branding. When planning your brand strategy it is vital to have a solid understanding of your customers and any external factors which affect the success of your company. The use of analytics will be key when measuring effectiveness against any metrics deemed important.

To learn more, please contact the team at Digital Clarity