Above the Noise: 5 Key Takeaways from Carrie Morgan’s insightful digital media guide

So you want to increase your brand’s online presence, eh? Your brand is struggling to establish a trustworthy, niche audience and consistently create online conversions; or perhaps you’re just looking to improve the quality of your brand’s digital content by incorporating basic marketing and SEO principles.

Regardless of the improvements you seek for your brand, Above the Noise will encourage you to master the necessary practices to achieve your goals. Challenging marketers, communicators and brand ambassadors to ‘rise above’ the challenge of establishing and producing a sub-par digital presence, Morgan’s guide serves as a unique tool that caters to beginner and intermediate marketers.

In a day and age dominated by the internet and its expansive database of information, digital is everything, and everything is digital. Consumers have always had the choice of whether or not they want to invest in your brand, service or product. Until the practice of online shopping came to fruition, consumers were forced to visit an actual storefront or location to purchase the goods or services they wanted. Since the creation and rapid popularity growth of e-commerce, consumers can shop at home, at work and essentially anywhere an active internet connection is available. Effortless online ordering has impacted consumer behavior, and as you can guess, this has drastically changed the way brands market their goods and services.

Franco’s Renaissance Readers Book Club members recognize the industry’s digital emphasis as communicators and brand ambassadors. After donning Morgan’s guide as their latest read, group members recently discussed their own spending habits and consumer behaviors to kick off the group’s latest meeting.

Account Director and Renaissance Readers creator Elizabeth Robbins-Sabourin asked members to share experiences from the holiday season in which they ‘shopped smart.’ Citing examples such as ordering groceries from Kroger, seeking discounts from Groupon and discussing the importance of Amazon Prime, the group agreed that understanding the benefits of the digital world provide endless opportunities to increase efficiency, and at the end of the day, has forced brands to establish trust with consumers in an entirely different fashion.

The less you know, the more you can learn

In 2018, it’s unacceptable to claim “I don’t know how to do social media.” Whether you’re moderately familiar with social media or a first-time participant in the digital world, take advantage of resources such as online courses and articles, print materials (like Above the Noise!) and other sources to better understand the importance of your brand’s digital media presence. If you’re just beginning to establish your brand’s online presence, take it slow and find the appropriate channel for your audience. If you’re simply not up to the challenge, hire someone that is, as it’s essential that a brand is able to communicate with its online audiences.

Target audience = digital success

The internet knows a lot about your brand and its customers. In sustaining your brand’s relevance and striving to meet conversion and engagement goals, you must develop a niche audience and target specifically. In order to understand and properly identify your true audience, brands must intricately consider who they are targeting by researching and learning what its audience enjoys, where they live, how they spend their money and other specific behaviors pertinent to encouraging consumer conversions. The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to craft content and guide your SEO tailored to encouraging your audience to invest in your brand.

Conversions, conversions, conversions

As mentioned earlier, fewer customers are actually visiting storefronts and continue to turn to shopping online. An in-store sale or conversion is typically complimented with a few smiling employees, comforting music, inviting scents and other unique or interactive aspects stores have implemented over the years. In the digital world, your brand’s tone, voice and social media content takes the place of those smiling faces and refreshing scents. Thus it remains crucial to not only research your audience, but to identify the reason your audience needs what your brand has to offer. Conversions are what drive your business; whether it’s a subscription, sale, donation, volunteer opportunity or other quantified resource, it fuels your brand.

T-R-U-S-T

In an image-driven world filled with Photoshop edits and Snapchat filters, trust is hard to come by for consumers and brands alike. The two-way communication tool of social media revolves around a healthy mix of engaging with customers, creating specific, informational content and avoiding robotic and insincere responses. Think about why trust is gained and lost in your personal life, and apply those experiences to your brand’s digital presence. If your brand gains trust with a consumer or audience, how will you maintain it? Consequently, if the trust is lost, what is your brand willing to do to gain that trust back? Be sure to maintain a consistent tone and stay true to your brand. Content should be non promotional and most importantly, useful.

Research, benchmark, research

To implement and maintain a successful digital strategy, the process begins and ends with research. Whether you’re looking to learn more about digital, establishing your audience, seeking conversions or building trust, you’ll always need to have an accurate understanding of the information you seek. Research your brand’s industry, competitors, popular social content themes and more. Compliment your findings by tracking your brand’s success. Review content, engagement patterns and conversions as often as you’re researching. Always look to improve, and when the appropriate timing comes along, seek growth for your brand.
An instrumental guide for beginner and experienced entrepreneurs, business owners and communication professionals alike, Morgan’s insights will encourage you to transform the way you approach digital media. These five takeaways represent a small portion of the tips we learned and we recommend purchasing the book for your own advancement and enjoyment!

Learn anything? Interested in more of Franco’s perspective? Leave a comment!

James Youness is an assistant account executive at Franco serving various B2B and consumer accounts.