Summary
In this episode of the Digital Remodeler Podcast, Brian Reina discusses digital branding’s significance and implementation. Reina, a branding strategist, emphasizes the broader concept of branding beyond logos, highlighting its psychological aspects and audience connection. Influenced by his wife’s expertise, Reina delves into digital branding’s evolution and the necessity for businesses to adapt to online platforms for broader reach. He stresses understanding goals, maintaining a clear brand identity, knowing the audience, and evaluating strengths and weaknesses as crucial steps in crafting a branding strategy. Reina cites Apple as a prime example of effective branding. Techniques like storytelling and engagement are recommended, with a focus on metrics to gauge success. Looking ahead, Reina predicts AI, virtual reality, and the metaverse will shape future branding strategies. Key takeaways include embracing digital branding’s importance, conducting thorough research, managing expectations, and fostering authenticity in strategies. Reina’s insights promise continued engagement with future podcast topics.
Transcript:
(00:00) welcome to the digital remodeler podcast I’m so glad you’ve joined us today I’m with Brian Reina and we’re going to be discussing the topic of what is digital branding and what it means to your business all right so Brian we’re going to get started on our topic here today great topic what is digital branding what does it mean to your business and so if you’d start out just tell us a little bit about yourself and uh how you got your expertise in digital branding absolutely Carl uh pleasure to be here so uh
(00:31) I have been working as a branding strategist for the past five years um I worked with Brands all over the world so Europe the US Canada Australia a few in South America right now I’m located in South America and I have worked with a few here as well um so yeah it’s it’s something that that came to me um uh naturally I think I was really interested in the psychology behind what branding is human behavior why we buy this product and not the other products why we are attracted to this type of service and from this brand or business
(01:11) and not the other one so uh yeah that’s that’s a little bit of a background uh on my story and uh yeah I’m glad to be here excellent so uh what made you decide to specialize though in in that branding area you know there’s so many areas of marketing uh why why was branding so appealing to you good question I think the big thing for me was my wife um she kind of uh really got me interested in what branding was and and this side of Market marketing was just because um she had graduated um in a field or from a university in
(01:55) Russia um in digital uh branding and so it really interested me into what she was doing uh how she thought about Brands about marketing and it just really made me interested in learning more about it as I started learning more about it and as I started working more and more with uh customers I realized that um I really really uh liked the psychology part behind it so that really made me um kind of a fan about branding and just kind of a you know a really curious learner excellent so let’s let’s start at the
(02:33) beginning because not everybody understands what a a brand truly is so what is digital branding and what are some of the ways that’s evolved in say the last 25 or 30 years that’s a good question so yeah we definitely have to take a look at what branding is so branding and a lot of people might think it’s it’s just a logo or it’s your product it’s uh your business name but it’s basically it’s essentially all of this taken to you know put it um put together and it creates this message this brand and a brand is a
(03:11) result so uh essentially what digital branding is it’s taking all of these components and utilizing online platforms or online channels to um really um reach a bigger audience especially because audiences now most of them are online uh they don’t really look at Billboards uh they uh don’t really use radio so most of them are online now and this is really essentially what digital branding is taking all of these components taking all of these uh brand identity uh components and just uh putting it all together in a clear
(03:56) message for viewers online Okay so is that just having a website and a social media presence or does it go a lot deeper than that no it definitely goes a lot deeper than that um I mean there’s there’s different techniques methods uh to promote your services uh there’s SEO there are paid ads um there’s email marketing where you create a list and you nurture a list of uh potential consumers um and you rank them um further down down the uh the buying cycle um and there’s just there’s many ways to
(04:33) have consumers notice you and to know that you exist really okay excellent so let’s talk about the impact that branding has on somebody’s business so you know how does digital branding influence a business’s overall success uh it’s reputation I mean in a world where you know everything’s online everybody’s on their smartphone you’re getting bombarded with lots of messages so how does the digital brand influence uh the success of that business good question again Carl so I would say
(05:10) um if you aren’t online you really it’s really hard for you to reach your audience [Music] um it’s much harder for people to know about you and whether you like it or not um you know talking about your reputation the bad reviews that’s your brand the random social media content that you posted this month that’s your brand right the overly salesy maybe Facebook ad that was created uh before let’s say for a campaign this month that’s your brand as well so that you know a lot of key components obviously can affect your
(05:51) reputation but it obviously affects your success as well so if you’re not online or if you are online but you’re not doing it correctly um it really can you know impact your business in a negative way um so it’s really crucial to understand how to promote your businesses online what digital channels you need to be on uh what techniques or what methods of of promoting your business or your services you need to use so that you know a broader audience is able to to see it and really connect with that message so
(06:27) it’s it’s really quite you know uh a lot of ways that uh digital branding can really influence your business it’s uh it’s many ways excellent so Are there specific Industries or or types of businesses that can benefit more uh from having a strong brand than perhaps others I would say I would say no I would say pretty much every brand every type of of brand if it’s a you know business commercial brand brand if it’s a personal brand um they all can benefit from digital branding um it might be faster for some uh to get
(07:09) noticed uh you know opposed to others so if if a brand has a face for a company uh I’m not sure you know if it’s uh if it’s the owner if it’s the marketing manager if it’s somebody that’s a phase maybe they hired a model to take some photos take some videos a famous actor um it might be easier and and the reason why it’s easier uh is because of human behavior so us humans we like to interact with other human beings we don’t want to do business with a machine or with a software we want to do
(07:44) business with other people right so if you take um McDonald’s for example McDonald’s has a character called Ronald McDonald why do you think they created such a character um because it was easier to connect with their brand to connect with their audience to connect with their target audience right um basically they created a personality out of their brand right now this is a concept that a lot of businesses do and if you even take a look at like sports teams they all have mascots and it’s a a bird an eagle it’s a different types of
(08:22) mascots that give this team a different personality and the reason behind that is because they want to be able to connect with their audience they want to build a relationship and it’s much easier for a consumer to build a relationship with a character or personality or a person instead of a software so I would say that’s probably one of the the benefits of also you know building uh or having face or a character for you know for the face of a company um but yeah overall I think all types of businesses are able to create a strong
(08:59) digital brand unbank yeah excellent so what are the fundamental steps that a business should take When developing their unique branding strategy what what are really the key components they need to be thinking through there’s many components but I would say there’s probably four three to four steps uh actually around four steps that you need to take before you do anything else and you need to the first step is to get really clear on your goals what is your main goal for using digital branding or for using an online uh
(09:39) platform or channel to promote your services right so what are your goals if that is building brand awareness is it just bringing in more sales so you really need to understand what your goals are because it can you can kind of go down a wrong path if you’re not sure what your goals are and you start creating you know promoting your business a certain type of way um and then uh you understand that this is not really what you wanted to do so it’s very crucial um to have a clear goal that’s the first
(10:17) step the Second Step would be to have a strong or to have a clear brand identity so what is your logo what are your brand colors what are the even the fonts that people see uh on your website on your on your logo your logo font um on your content that’s been published on social media that’s the second step having clear brand identity but also your vision your values your mission right why you created the servicer why you started this business and who you were thinking of when you created this business right so what is the exact uh
(10:56) individual that you want to be helping um when you know with these services that you provide and then the third step would be to know your audience of course to do some research on who your ideal client is so what are they uh what are their pain points what are their frustrations where do they hang out uh how old are they are they females are they males uh you know or who’s your audience and then the last thing you also want to do is you want to go over your strengths your weaknesses your opportunities when when building
(11:30) this uh digital marketing strategy or digital branding strategy I’m sorry and your threats so a lot of people and I’ll give you an example of a uh insurance agent right um an insurance agent that wants to promote Services uh or his his or her services online and wants to build some some video content right now the insurance agent might not be a great speaker and if you start posting video content of him speaking online well that could be looked as a weakness and users might not relate to him as much as if as if
(12:09) they would relate to a strong speaker right they might not connect with him as much so that could be one of your weaknesses you want to make sure that you go through all of these steps before you even start planning out uh what are the next steps okay what are the social media uh paid advertisements that you want to run what is your SEO campaign book like right so before all of that is considered you want to make sure you want to go through through these four steps okay good so you gave some examples or kind of a
(12:41) brief example of a place where you know Brandon could be a bit of a problem uh but let’s talk about are there some examples you can think of where businesses have done a really good job uh with their digital branding the way they’ve executed and what is it that makes them stand out uh when you point to those examples yeah that’s a that’s a good question I would say um I mean if you uh just to give an example of let’s say a brand or a company that is phenomenal at what they do everybody knows them
(13:18) um it’s uh Apple so if you think about Apple and the way they uh first of all the way they’re consistent with um all of their promotional campaigns their marketing um everything you see online is always consistent and you automatically recognize that it’s Apple just because it’s it’s it’s a clear message and just you know uh the type of um marketing campaigns that they’ve ran in past and they’re running now you always feel like it’s uh you know they make the product seem like it’s simple
(13:56) um and how I believe Steve Jobs used to say he wants you to think of this product like it’s an extension of your arm right so it’s very simple to use um so this is you know one really good example of a of a business that has done really a phenomenal job at uh branding and just developing a clear message to its audience that automatically and instantly people can recognize in any corner of the internet excellent any other examples you can think of um I mean uh the top of my head I can’t really think of uh I mean there’s
(14:37) there’s tons of examples um if I would say uh an example let’s say for a for a local business uh let’s say an insurance agency um there I would say the the biggest uh obstacle that insurance agencies face uh when thinking you know they know they need digital brand they know they need some some marketing online but they’re not sure how to do it and one of the biggest obstacles that they face is um basically just just not having uh enough knowledge on what they need to be doing um but the ones that do know
(15:20) um what to do and how to really Implement their strategy so that viewers can really build a connection to to the agency and to you know having this trust towards the towards the agency or the business a lot of them really uh have been able to implement a lot of video content and I think we’ll we’ll discuss a little bit more about video content but video content has been really a revolution to their business and this is a way that really they’ve they’ve kind of evolved just because consumer Behavior the way
(15:58) that we consume content is completely different now to you know 10 years 20 years 30 years ago now video content really is King it’s it’s a dominating factor in any type of industry and this is a way that they’ve been able to really Elevate their their digital branding strategy yeah good yeah that’s a great segue into the next question so uh you know what are the tools and techniques that uh you know are essential really for businesses that want to enhance their branding efforts right now so if we talk about tools I would say
(16:37) um there’s still a lot of different tools it really depends what you what you want to be doing um once you decide what your digital marketing or digital branding strategy is uh you can find a lot of great tools so there’s different tools for everything um I mean there’s tools for uh social media content creation there’s tools for email marketing there’s tools for video so if you really want to if you’re in an industry where you can really show a lot of visual content to your audience obviously YouTube would be a great tool
(17:13) to use but also video editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro and simple tools that even you know you can for beginners it’s a very simple tool called Capcom capca is a tool that was created by Tick Tock and it’s simply used to create real tools to create short form video so there’s a lot of great tools out there and then a few techniques I would say the ones that really stand out are the storytelling so creating a narrative around your brand and sharing authentic stories that connect to your audience
(17:53) um on a more emotional level that’s a really good technique um and and you know a lot of Brands really never think of that and then they’re wondering why there’s not really a connection with their consumers or their target audience so that’s one of the big techniques that you always need to think about because people like stories people love um happy ending stories uh you know inspiring stories so if you can use storytelling that’s a really really great technique another one would just be engagement in general so engaging with
(18:31) your audience um you know creating live videos on your social media platforms where you’re able to really communicate with them uh really know what their frustrations are uh understand uh if they like your service if they don’t you know get some feedback from them and just basically replying to comments uh creating conversations on your on your social media posts not only does this help you learn more about your ideal client but it also makes them feel acknowledged and it really creates loyal fans so it’s uh
(19:07) you know these are some really good techniques as well okay good and then how do you measure success with your your branding how do you know whether you’re uh as we would say moving the needle at all uh with your posting and your shorts and your color scheme and and all those things how do you measure that it really depends on what your ideal goal is so if your goal is to nourish some leads um on you know while utilizing social media ads um obviously you know checking the kpis uh it’s a big you know uh part of of
(19:51) understanding if you’re actually moving the needle and this is something that a lot of people really uh forget about or they just don’t take into consideration how important uh checking metrics every day or every week is because you always want to know uh what are the key things that people are really loving about your branding about your your strategy this is one way that you can really understand what is really um you know making your business go forward or actually keeping them stuck in one place so that would be one of the
(20:26) ways to to do that okay and then just just talk a little bit about uh you know what’s coming down the road are there any Trends uh things that are happening that as you kind of look into the future you see you’re really going to you know uh make an impact on the way that that a business does its branding um I’d say for Trends I mean there’s there’s different um events that would be you know that we have to be aware of um but I would say the big one would be um just technology how it’s evolving
(21:07) um AI in general um virtual reality uh metaverse um there’s different ways that nowadays um people are socializing you know in a in a metaverse in a different in a digital world um and just connecting with each other and I think that this is one of the ways that in the future absolutely there’s going to be Brands and companies that are utilize this method to to Really uh connect with uh you know uh connect with their users but um also just um developing like new strategies or new uh marketing strategies that are really
(21:48) going to attract that specific user um to to its products or to their services okay great and so as we kind of wrap up here what would you say are you the the top two or three takeaways you would want the audience uh to have from our discussion that they could apply uh today into their own businesses absolutely good question so I would say the first takeaway is understanding that digital branding is The New Normal um making sure that you uh are taking advantage of it if you think about uh the Gen Z and gen Alpha now uh which
(22:33) is something I learned not too long ago uh if if you understand where they’re hanging out if you understand what they’re doing instead of spending time at the park um you really you know understand that if you’re not online first of all and if you’re not doing it the right way and you’re not taking advantage as they’re increasing or as their spending power increases you really are missing out to your competition because there’s a lot of competition now there’s a lot of competition online and I would say uh
(23:09) just just understanding um you know doing your research on your audience doing your research on what’s working now spying on your competitors making sure that um you’re able to really create a strong strategy so that you can really uh you know increase your chances of building uh your business online and of course just having clear expectations um that it’s not going to work like you know in 24 hours it’s not going to be something that gives you results immediately um because there’s a lot of competition
(23:47) um but also uh just having authentic original uh ideas that you can really Implement into your strategy I think those would be uh you know some some takeaways when you think about building a digital branding strategy excellent well Brian it’s been good having you here and uh Brian will be a featured uh expert on future podcasts so be sure and tune in to US Weekly and we’ll have some new and exciting topics for you thanks again Brian thank you Carl pleasure being here