Published on September 24th, 2020 | by Sunit Nandi

Digital Marketing: Make Your Brand Stand Out During the Pandemic

From the time the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, we have seen a disheartening turn of events. It has changed countries, individuals, and businesses all over the world. Terms such as “social distancing” and “quarantine” have made it difficult to know how to function in our daily lives.

Business owners are finding it harder to get their brands out there by word of mouth. The situation seems dire! What if I told you the pandemic might be the push your business has been waiting for–to finally succeed and grow?

Since its start, digital marketing has always been evolving. Business owners can now rely on it to create an even bigger reach to clients all over the world. All this, and at the touch of a button (a few contacts rather). By hiring an inbound marketing agency, you can make your business stand out despite the pandemic. All you have to do is follow a few easy steps:

Step 1: Clarify Your Brand

Understand who you are and what you offer. This is an important first step in helping your business grow its reach no matter what.

This helps you create a picture of what you want people to see, visualize, or experience. This picture is what you want to pop into their mind every single time they interact with you or your product.

Once you are clear on this, you have figured out your brand. Now you can work out who your product is for and how you can provide your potential customers access to your site in the simplest way possible.

Remember, you cannot market what you don’t understand.

Step 2: Create A Content Map For Your Product

A content map is a plan to get your product/service to the people who need it at the right time. How do you do that? Not to worry! Here’s how business owners can do this:

Create a buyer persona.

This is a fictional, generalized description of your ideal customer. You can develop as many of these descriptions as needed. It will all depend on how many different types of people you want to target.

Your customer will go through three stages to make a buy. These are Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Suppose for a moment that you are a beer company. You pride yourself on manufacturing alcohol that does not cause hangovers. You feel sorry for all the party-goers that have to go to work once the party’s over.

One of your buyer personas could be a finance/sales/marketing executive. This person needs to have a great time entertaining clients and still be able to deliver at work. Take some time to look at the stages your customer will go through before he purchases your beer:

Awareness – Your customer is looking to have a good time. He comes across an infographic of your beer making the rounds on Instagram. He thinks you might be a good thing for him.

Consideration – Your customer is now sure he wants to have a party soon. All he needs is to buy that beer that will cause a buzz with the crowd. He sees a few more graphics. He even sees a video with some guys looking sharp in their suits–just like him. Those guys are holding your beer in their hands and seem to be having a pretty good time.

Decision – Your customer stops looking around at other products. Now all he wants to know is where your beers are being sold in bulk!

At each of the stages, you are appealing to that executive. But remember, the kind of content you use at each of these stages matters. It is crucial to provide your brand a wide runway, which leads us to the next step.

Step 3: Create Good Content

You have defined your product and your target audience. Now you have a springboard to content that will attract and engage your target audience.

There are many options to draw from, depending on the kind of product that you offer. Videos, animated graphics, blog posts, infographics, and e-books about your brand are always useful.

If you intend to do this yourself, you may need to take a few courses on photography and graphics; otherwise, you can hire someone who comes with loads of experience to develop content for you.

Step 4: Market Your Content Digitally

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Now that you have created some great content let’s use it to create some rapport between you and your customers. Here are a few great tactics that you can use to make your brand stand out:

Social Media

You can find anything and anyone on social media lately. According to statistics, there are 3.5 billion social media users worldwide. My best guess is that the ideal customer for your product is hanging out there too. A well-done video or infographic might be just the thing you need to get your brand in front of people. Post it on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest and wait for those likes.

The social media platforms are endless. How will you keep up with them all? Well, you don’t have to do all the work yourself. Various social media scheduling tools could save you time.

All you have to do is develop great content. Make sure that it works for the platforms you choose, and your scheduler will push it for you. This will help you appear engaging and responsible as a business owner.

Online PR

If you own a bigger business, you want to extend your reach. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter on their own will not do that for you. How about taking your PR online! You can use your website to maintain contact with your clients. You can do this through digital publications, blogs, and other content. And the best part is you can still have links to all your social media platforms so your clients won’t miss a thing.

You would be able to give answers to queries or comments about your blog posts and publications. This would give you an ‘up close and personal’ contact with your clients.

Inbound Marketing

This means that you use a strategy that helps your customer have a good personal experience. Instead of relying on pop-up ads and messages, you now attract and engage with the right customer.

You can attach forms to your publications, blogs, or ebooks. These forms can help you to collect important data on anyone who reads or accesses them. And now what you have on your hands is potential; someone interested in what you have to offer.

Since you already have developed a content map, you now know what your customer needs to know about you. At each point of their interaction with you, you can use the right content. This will convert “potential” into another satisfied customer.

Affiliate Marketing

You might not be quite comfortable with jumping onto the internet on your own. What if you tried to embrace this digital marketing concept and it spat you out before you made it too far.

You can always get someone else to market your product for you. They could post your content on their website or social media accounts. In turn, you can give them a commission. The result of this is that you will reach more people than you could on your own.

There are even companies that have mastered the art of marketing brands and they may do your brand justice. You can trust them to create content that promotes your brand and gets it out to your customers for a fee. All you need to do is find a company that understands who you are and what you stand for. If the price is right, you are good to go.

Online streaming channels

Good old fashioned radio will work for you. Radios are now going online. They are available across the world too. Why not invest in an ad on your local radio station? You can still win from using this traditional tactic.

Congratulations! You have started engaging with your customers online. You’ll need that extra touch to make sure your customers are always right where you want them.

Utilizing SEO

If you have a website, Facebook page, LinkedIn account, etc. you can now optimize your page. To rank higher in searches made online, write publications or blog posts about your brand. Be sure to link them to more renowned publishers in your field or have a link building reseller get backlinks for you.

For example, if you write a blog as a doctor, you can link your page to Mayo Clinic so it pops up as a related page. You can also apply to be a guest blogger on other websites.

Paid Ads

You can create ads and pay a publisher for every single time your ad gets a click. Platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google make provisions for this.

Conclusion

One thing is certain with digital marketing : you cannot go wrong. A special level of investment will be needed on your part; but follow these steps and your brand will stand out from the crowd.

Tags: brand, digital marketing, pandemic, stand out

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.