Creating Your Digital Brand: The Gateway to the Internet of Winners

We are often asked where to start if we want to be successful on the Internet? And the answer is always the same: “ start by creating your digital brand ”. Make sure that your company name, its identity, its brand and even your own personal brand can be  found, understood, differentiated from the competition, identified as very good at something, and that it symbolizes seriousness and trust .

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Creating your Digital Brand: Option or Obligation?

When we start an online business, or we want to take the physical business we have had for years or that we have just launched online, our most common focus is on SALES . Of course, using the Internet to sell a lot, or to sell more.

And then we say to ourselves with euphoria: “ I’ll get a good website, invest a little in advertising and receive green bills, lots of dollars… ”, until the harsh reality makes us wake up from the playful dream, hopefully before we have lost all our investment and our valuable time.

Why would that happen to you? Because you’re skipping a step. And not just any step, but the most important one of all when starting out:  creating your digital brand . In today’s business whirlwind, people want – more than ever – to do business with entities (companies or people) that they know and trust.

Throughout our entire website you will find one constant: the famous  Three-Step Ladder  to Internet Success:  I Know You ;  I Recognize You  (as good at something) and  I Trust You . Only after they have gone down that path will they buy from you.

Your potential buyers need to know who you are, how you got to where you are, what attributes identify you; what you are really good at or better than others; and how you express your loyalty to those who buy from you. If  all of that comes together  in a positive light, then they will trust you and buy your products and services.

And “ the whole story ” starts with your willingness and ability to create your digital brand. Let’s look at why branding is so important in the digital world:

• Your brand is your business’s first  letter of introduction  and sums up everything that you and your business stand for.
• Your brand sows, cements and promotes your  credibility , showing you as a real person, and above all, as someone or something with a purpose and certain skills.
• Your brand  tells a story : that of your interrelations (with clients, employees, collaborators, suppliers and entities in your environment) and that of your ability to meet the needs of your target market.
• Your brand extends and  transfers its attributes  to the quality of your products, to your after-sales service, to the perception that remains in the minds of your prospects and consumers after each interaction.

And that, my dear friends, is something that you should engrave in your hearts as entrepreneurs: the PERCEPTION that remains in people’s minds is what counts. So, all your efforts to create your digital brand must be based on solidifying and increasing the positive side of that perception.

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Creating your Digital Brand is Above All Creating Brand Awareness

According to the  American Marketing Association , a brand “ is a name, term, symbol, or other characteristic that identifies the goods and services of one seller as distinct from those of another seller .” But this very brief definition is missing a key part:

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So, if we continue with the logic we have been developing so far, creating your digital brand begins by making people aware of your existence and what exactly you do; getting them to know and identify the attributes of your brand and, above all, the benefits that your products or services can provide them.

If you know them, identify them and recognize the purpose they serve, then you will be creating brand awareness , one of the most important steps in the sales process.

However, for your company to survive and grow, it is not enough to make people aware of your brand. You have to make people remember it.

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Creating Your Digital Brand Is Also Creating Brand Recall

“ People have a long tongue, but a short memory ” said the ancient Greeks. So it is not enough that  TODAY  they identify you as what you are and that they associate you appropriately with the benefits you provide. It is essential that you put down roots in their memory, that they identify you today and also  TOMORROW , that you transform “ knowledge ” into “ positioning ”.

True brand awareness is achieved when people’s knowledge of what you do and what you are good for is positioned in their minds in such a way that when a certain need arises, a ” hidden ” trigger will trigger a memory, a feeling, a portion of knowledge and a desire to count on, at that precise moment, in that situation and to solve that need, nothing more and nothing less than  your product or service .

Anything else you are told is “ empty theory .” If your efforts to create your digital brand do not result in an “ action ” – a purchase or at least a request for more information – then you will have achieved very little.

I hope you understand me well up to this point, but I know you think it’s very complicated, that you’d better stick to your own thing and not get caught up in all this because you won’t be able to achieve it… That’s how I felt at some point too. That’s how we all feel. But it’s necessary, it’s viable and it’s possible. And I’m going to prove it to you by breaking down the whole process into 5 stages.

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The 5 Essential Steps to Create Your Digital Brand

Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. Sometimes a lot of time… but there is always a “day zero ” to start and that needs to happen as soon as possible.

Stage I:

Let’s call it the “ conceptual part ” of brand creation, which is perhaps the one that most people like the least. In fact, most of the requests for help I receive are related to this stage. It’s tedious, I know, and if your strong point is not oral or written expression, then you’ll have a hard time, but you can’t avoid it and it consists of 5 steps:

1. You need to determine the “ target market ” for which you are going to create your digital brand and you have to be as specific as your business allows. In other words, who are your products or services aimed at: experienced business owners, entrepreneurs who are just starting out, young people about to enter university, senior citizens, single mothers…, etc.
2. You need to define your “ brand statement ”, which in some cases is divided into “ vision ” and “ mission ”, and in others it comes down to simply answering the question of how I want to be known and how I want to be remembered.
3. You need to research the “ leading brands ” in your sector, your geographic area, etc. and determine how you can  differentiate yourself  from them. You might be scared that some are too big, strong and recognized, but believe me, there is always something you can do differently, and even better.
4. So now you need to identify, structure, enhance (and above all please don’t overcomplicate) those attributes that make you  different , better, or at least  competitive  in certain aspects: maybe it’s the materials you use, the finish, the presentation, your money-back promise, your after-sales service, and many others, as the case may be. Sometimes just standing out in one aspect is enough.
5. Give   your brand its initial  personality : that is, its graphic identity  and even its own  voice . Just don’t forget that it’s not enough to possess something, but that you have to adequately communicate what you possess or are capable of doing, which is why the design of your “ messages ” is as important as that of your  logo  and your  slogan .

Of course, each of the previous steps must be thought out to be displayed in the physical world and to be inserted in the digital world .

Stage II:

Now it’s time to move on to the design of your  Digital Presence , that is, not only your website, but all the platforms where your brand will appear. The first impression counts, so the design of your website, your pages on Social Networks and even your emails, Memes and other forms of expression have to be very carefully designed: aesthetically acceptable and functionally operable .

But second impressions count too. And fifth ones. And all of them. Therefore, the adjective “ memorable ” should not be applied exclusively to the initial design of everything, but to  EVERYTHING  you are going to do to build, to create your digital brand. And memorable does not mean that you replicate the Sistine Chapel or the Eiffel Tower. It means being good enough to  generate a positive impression in the memory of your target audience.

This is the moment where you go back to step 5 of Stage I and design, redesign, test and redesign again your logo, your main slogan, your corporate identity in general and the essence of the messages you transmit… from the point of view of the perception they generate.

Stage III:

Now comes the “ acid test ”. It involves putting your logo, your website, your social media pages, your memes, emails, etc., before the eyes of friends (children are very helpful in these cases) and colleagues, but not to hear praise, but rather so that they “ try to destroy everything you have created ”, so that they criticize you, burn you… and propose ideas and alternatives that help you perfect what you have done.

The key is to listen to everyone and then draw your own conclusions. You have to be very  humble to recognize that you may have made a mistake, that you could have done many things better… and  arrogant enough  to insist on what is truly part of the essence of your idea. Remember that the vision of some creators who have opposed the “ wisdom ” of others is what has accelerated global progress.

Stage IV:

And now comes “ the chicken of the chicken rice ”: the creation of  CONTENT on a larger scale. Without content there is no brand, and much less a brand on the Internet. To create your digital brand you will have to produce articles ,  memes ,  videos ,  comments  and much more with a certain frequency and consistency  .

On the Internet,  content is king . You are found by the keywords in your content, you are recognized as an expert in something thanks to what you publish, and, most importantly, you generate trust in your brand through the multiple interactions that those pieces of content establish with your potential clients.

Stage V:

Now that you’ve come a long way initially, it’s time to take this to the next level.  It’s time to build trust and credibility in your brand!

You can be the coolest, most well-intentioned expert on the planet, but that still doesn’t mean people will start throwing money at you. Your audience needs to trust you before they’ll buy anything from you, and that trust-building becomes the pinnacle of the process of creating your digital brand.

To achieve this, you need to put aside the verb  SELL for a moment  and raise a big flag with the verb  SERVE . Yes, as you heard. It is above all about adding value to your community in the form of high-quality, extremely useful, consumable content (and that they want to share!).

That’s why you either do it yourself or seek help, but you have to start not only creating high-quality content, as we said in the previous phase, but creating  SOLUTIONS . If you help people, affect the change in their ways of thinking and the way they behave in some way, they will quickly become the go-to source in your niche, on the Internet and in the real world.

By way of conclusions

Creating your digital brand must be a genuine, sincere process, focused on the end user and not on the profits you want to make. If your user is satisfied, if they know your brand, recognize it as very good at something and it inspires confidence in them, then you may not become a millionaire, but your digital business will be on the right track.