The emphasis new brands need to place on their online presence is more significant than ever before. Not only will the internet offer ease-of-access to larger and more valuable markets than the proprietor of any solely-physical shopfront could ever dream of, but, ultimately, existing within this digital world will prove instrumental to shaping, refining, and growing your fledgling brand.
Still, ensuring that you create a strong foundation for yourself on the internet is easier said than done. To that end, read about the three cornerstones any new brand should focus on creating as they build their online presence.
A Strong Website
It is hard to imagine any brand, product or service navigating its way through the complex maze that is the world wide web of 2021 without first supporting themselves on a strong, up-to-date, and creative website.
The trouble is, ensuring that even the smallest investments of time and money prove worthwhile can be difficult without the right tools, knowledge and support – not to mention actually generating a strong ROI, both in terms of attention from relevant markets, and money. Think back to the last time you found yourself on a badly designed website – and how quickly you abandoned it in favour of something faster, smoother, and more visually appealing. Picture that bad site and ask yourself, can you even remember the name of the brand it belonged to?
We all spend so much time on the internet that, as we begin to build a new brand, it is very easy to convince ourselves that the process of establishing, augmenting and evolving an online presence will prove relatively easy. Unlike crunching big numbers or tracking down suitable investment opportunities, creating a website is more a matter of creativity and flair than anything else, right? It is this line of thinking that has given rise to so many sites that do not do a good brand justice. When it comes to creating a website, turning a vision into reality will prove nigh on impossible if you begin with a blank page. Fortunately, the hugely popular website creation and hosting platform Wix offers free website templates, along with a whole spate of other tools that support both the technical and visual aspects of your site.
Social Media Activity
A fair few years ago, it may have been enough for this entry to simply read: Social Media. Now, however, simply owning a social media account – or even a handful of social media accounts – will offer very little of value to your brand.
In the vast majority of cases, an inert account will entail inert metrics, and social media will prove to be a waste of time for you. Engagement, follower count, and, in a more qualitative sense, excitement for your brand will likely plateau and, ultimately, lead nowhere. Not only will this represent a waste of the time it took to create those accounts in the first place, but it will also represent a wasted opportunity for your brand.
Social media represents one of the most valuable digital assets we all have at our disposal. Not only does it represent the most valuable industry gatekeeper – the most popular platforms boast billions of active users that span an incredibly wide range of demographics, and generate a wealth of targetable data each and every day – but posting and communicating directly with your customers (and prospective customers) is free.
That’s not to say building a social media presence won’t require its own financial investment as you scale your operations, but that cutting to the very core of your market in the first place – and, most importantly, making yourself known to them – is something you can begin doing right off the bat.
Social media is far more nuanced than it once was. Instagram is no longer limited to food and fashion blogging, and Twitter’s opportunities for creating a narrative extend far beyond 280 characters. Getting to grips with this area of the web will be a learning curve, but one that will prove incredibly worthwhile for you, and your brand.
A Meticulous and Scalable Email Marketing Campaign
Getting the strongest possible ROI out of your digital presence is about more than generating engagement in the first place. The most successful newcomers will be those who understand how to capture, retain, and utilise engagement in order to sustain and augment it over the weeks, months, and years that follow that initial wave of interest.
One of the best ways to do this is via an email marketing campaign – and one that makes the very most out of all that data and user insight your campaign and website garners. For this reason, many people choose to an email marketing platform that is built into their web design platform, in order to boost efficiency and ensure their brand remains consistent across the board.
Email marketing ensures consistent outreach to existing customers – those who have already offered you their email address, and who stand a high chance of offering return business, provided you maintain that engagement effectively.
Of course, ensuring that your online presence is always realising its full potential is easier said than done. Provided, however, that you have established a strong foundation on which to build it, and gather together all of the necessary marketing tools, it will continue to offer you massive potential for growth, development, and increased engagement over the years to come.