Top 5 Brands with Great Digital Marketing

The thought of creating a marketing strategy can be daunting. You have to learn the best tactics, go through complex processes and use unfamiliar technologies. You also need to keep an eye on your competitors to stay ahead of the curve.

Why Digital Marketing Is Important

Digital marketing is a way of marketing and promoting a brand, using electronic media present on the internet. This also includes social media.

Digital marketing gets results much faster than traditional marketing. An amazing range of tools allows entrepreneurs to find unique recipes for success.

Another advantage is statistics. If a marketer uses Google AdSense, for example, they have a tool that allows them to get full reports on results. These tools make advertising campaigns more successful and more targeted.

Top 5 Brands

Here are the top five examples of successful brand marketing strategies.

Nike

From the outset, Nike has embedded a specific identity in consumers’ minds and focused its marketing on promoting specific values. These are sportsmanship, overcoming adversity, and innovation. Although these values are intangible, they provide superior brand value and equity.

Innovation is a quality that the brand must embrace on all fronts. Over the years, Nike has launched models such as the Waffle Trainer, the self-lacing trainer, and the theNikeVaporfly trainer, which both innovated and promoted their brand.

Launched in 2018, Nike’s ‘Scan to Try‘ app allows customers to scan the barcode on any product and use the app to see what colors and sizes are available. This app also helps find out more about the product.

A recent innovation is Nike Fit. It is a virtual app that allows shoe sizes to be recorded using smartphones. Thanks to such constant innovation, customers remain delighted with the brand and come back for more.

Nike has nurtured a culture of true believers who utter phrases such as ‘If you’ve got a body, you’re an athlete. 

Nike also understands that people are guided by influencers they admire. So they have leveraged influencer marketing and asked athletes like Michael Jordan and Carly Lloyd to post on their accounts.

GoPro

Before, many photographers, athletes, and YouTube creators were unhappy with cameras that couldn’t take high-quality pictures. GoPro cameras have enjoyed success with those who like to capture their daring stunts on film. They manage to record content that is almost impossible to capture with traditional cameras.

When users post their videos, GoPro then shares them on Instagram and other social media channels. In turn, this is causing more and more GoPro users and customers to create and post their own videos. By sharing their videos, users become brand ambassadors.

The company also ups the ante with GoPro Awards, high-quality content on YouTube and Instagram, and other social media contests. GoPro rewards the owners of the best content with gear, cash prizes, or ‘social shares’. This leads to loyalty, customer retention, advocacy, and genuine social proof at no extra cost. It also makes customers feel part of a larger community and gives users their moment of fame by racking up thousands of views and shares.

Sephora

Sephora provides a shopping experience tailored to each customer’s specific needs and preferences. Combining the digital experience with offline retailing and personalizing the cosmetic experience of its customers has set Sephora apart from its competitors.

The company uses collected customer data to make informed marketing decisions. Once the brand realized that beauty shoppers watch YouTube video tutorials before buying products. It then focused on creating hundreds of beauty videos every year. Sephora also collaborated with YouTube and Instagram influencers to showcase its products and attract new customers.

Netflix

Netflix provides entertainment services to millions of users in more than 100 countries. The company’s digital marketing strategy includes various campaigns and social media posts. For example, asking questions and creating polls puts Netflix on trending topics.

Netflix also lets its followers know what’s new on their streaming service and suggest series and movies by sharing relevant posts.

However, their original ads, which are quite catchy, have attracted more viewers. Examples include the black and white “Netflix is a joke” billboard and video ad campaigns that got fans talking and wondering.

The Netflix Stand-up Comedy specials ad campaign received free coverage in the global press as the media picked it up. During the Emmy Awards, Netflix showed a commercial that mixed clips of its original shows with footage of comedians cracking jokes.

Coca Cola

The brand collaborates with many small community-focused programs. For example, it supports an initiative to improve school facilities in India.

When a significant tragedy occurs in a region, the Coca-Cola brand supports people affected by the disaster.

The campaign also used social media to engage consumers and encourage them to share their impressions with others. It even increased traffic to Coca-Cola’s Facebook site by 870%.

Coca-Cola is also focusing on age segmentation. The brand targets older people who are diet-conscious and offer them Diet Coke. They then target younger consumers by sponsoring sports.

The brands listed have something in common. They focus on the needs (pain points) of their customer and meet them either through first-class quality or a reasonable price.

How to Build a Digital Marketing Strategy for your Business

A digital strategy is necessary if:

• you are going to scale your business and marketing,
• you want to enter new markets,
• you are planning to upgrade your website and connect extra channels to attract customers,
• your old channels are no longer working and your competitors are getting under pressure,
• new customers are becoming increasingly expensive, and the cost of attracting them is beyond profitability.

Below is a detailed 5-step plan for building a digital strategy

1. Gather and analyze the situation and all the raw data. It would be best if you had figures and facts. Gather all the data that relates to the strategy of the company. If you did a SWOT analysis, this experience would fit perfectly here: analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the company and the product, opportunities and potential threats from the market, and identify opportunities for growth.
2. Goal setting. Based on the goals of your company, you need to define what marketing and sales performance you are aiming for. These should be clearly digitized.
3. Identify bottlenecks and key points of change.  You need to identify the bottlenecks that are preventing you from achieving your goals. For example, it can be very low website traffic or conversions. You need a list of specific hypotheses for the constraints. These constraints will later turn into key impact points that your digital strategy will influence.
4. Identify the principle tactics and tools to achieve your goals. Formulate the key changes and tactics of your digital strategy.
5. Identify the necessary resources, timelines, and responsibilities. Both timelines and budgets at this stage are only indicative because there are still no concrete work plans that you can estimate.

As the experience of top companies shows, the ability to meet customer needs is paramount. Right marketing campaigns elicit emotional responses from customers, which builds loyalty and leads to repeat business.