A recent publication by HubSpot represents a unique insight into the world of digital marketing for companies of all sizes.  Intended for either agencies dedicated to providing engaging content for their clients, or marketers who want to improve their overall knowledge on the subject, the ebook offers excellent ideas to implement it into advanced digital branding projects. 

The publication discusses four major aspects marketers should take into consideration when executing a project in the inbound age.  As defined in the table of contents, Branding in the Digital Age puts traditional definitions of branding into the context of digital media, explains how a brand could be put into play online, and defines efficient techniquess for monitoring and measuring the brand. 

1.  Small companies can have a big voice on the Internet. 

“You know a brand when you see one - and you know one that isn’t working when you see one too.” 

This is HubSpot’s down-to-earth explanation of Andrew Sabatier's idea that a brand is essentially a set of ideas, images and slogans, which reflect customers’ experience with a particular company.  In the inbound age, brands can be built much faster, and even the small companies can have their voices heard.  However, their reputation can be destroyed in an instant too. 

This is why building a brand requires constant work and long-term commitment, which translate into creating and distributing engaging content across multiple channels. 

2.  Brand is built through content, social media presence, voice and website. 

“Online, your brand is the ability, in fact an obligation to know enough about a customer’s history that you can automatically create segmented, personalized experience for them. “ 

The book implies that online strategy should be adjusted to users’ needs and perceptions in order to create impactful experience.  Behind every brand, there is a team of people who monitor social media insights and create targeted content that eventually defines a brand’s impact.  This way, they move away from dispersed content and non-segmented automation for the best possible performance. 

3.  The web is too big to control everything. 

“People are talking about your brand beyond the pages for which you alone develop content.” 

The World Wide Web is simply too vast a space for you to be able to capture every single positive or negative mention of your brand.  The worrying thing is that if a customer shares his or her negative experience online, it stays there forever.  To better understand your consumers’ perception of your brand, you need to monitor its social activities, respond to your audience even when the things go wrong, and keep interacting with them to discover more. 

4.  Measuring ROI is difficult yet essential. 

“Awareness, unless followed at some point by consideration, intention, and purchase (the typical sales funnel) is worthless.” 

For years, online marketers have struggled to find the most efficient way to measure ROI from social activities that do not always show direct correlations with purchases.  The truth is that developing a systematic approach to this is not at all easy.  Again, to be able to measure ROI, you need to establish performance indicators and identify correlations between the most obvious ones.  Furthermore, you need to discover what form of content attracts purchases and place it strategically through the right channels. 

Conclusions

Branding in the Digital Age helps marketers understand the digital arena and tailor a brand image according to this knowledge.  Probably the major point the ebook makes is that user-centric approach is essential for every successful branding strategy in the inbound age.