Why Strategy Is Vital to Your Online Brand

Written by Rachel Richards

Have you ever considered the brand strategy behind your business? Why do you exist? What impact do you want to leave on your customers and the world?

These may seem like aspirational questions, but their answers have a powerful impact on your business and its bottom line. By shaping a strong brand strategy, you can create meaningful connections with your audience. This purpose-led approach allows you to create a loyal community with your customers and generate a positive return on investment (ROI) in your marketing. 

Strategic thinking has been the backbone of our approach for Lewis Estates Dental Centre (LEDC), a dental practice that focuses on care, compassion, and creating a worry-free experience for patients.

Read on for insightful tips from LEDC on staying true to your brand during COVID-19 while driving leads with online marketing solutions.

Tip #1: Master Your Brand Purpose

As the owner of LEDC, Dr. Bains is the face and brand image of the dental practice. Understanding the importance of brand purpose, she lives and breathes her “why” in everything she does.

Dr. Bains has invested years into creating an empathetic experience for patients. You can tell she values every team member and every patient that sits in her chair as people. When COVID-19 hit, LEDC’s strong brand foundation allowed the practice to weather this challenging storm and maintain great connections with patients.

Through clear, compassionate, and transparent communications with clients, LEDC was agile enough to respond to changes when public health mandates required emergency-only appointments.

We helped them get the word out by creating website updates, emails, blogs, posters, and even video scripts. Through it all, LEDC and Dr. Bains stayed true to their brand purpose of compassionate care, but they were able to pivot their marketing tactics quickly to respond to an evolving situation.

Just like LEDC, when your business invests the time and resources to define its vision, mission, values, and brand strategy, it can position you for success. Brand-led marketing provides the guiding light to help your business move in the right direction, even during the most turbulent of times.

Tip #2: Invest in the Right Technology

Every company wants to drive leads and revenue—that’s why you’re in business in the first place! But, do you have the visibility on your data and are you focusing on the right metrics to help get you there?

It’s essential to have the right analytics to measure your baseline performance and track that you’re setting realistic goals and reaching your objectives. In LEDC’s case, we helped them understand the full potential of their customer relationship management (CRM) software, Care Cru—which is designed for dental practices.

Our Digital Marketing team ensured that the platform was tracking the right metrics that LEDC needed to know to be successful. We directly tied analytics from the platform to the business and marketing goals that were most crucial to the practice.

We’re proud to say that LEDC understands the value of our reporting and these insights to guide their decision-making and communications with patients. Using technology to its full potential is key to extracting all of the value you invest in it.

Tip #3: Choose the Most Impactful Marketing Tactics

In 2021, there are endless options for nearly any product or service. This is definitely no different in the highly competitive dental industry. Patients are researching dentists in their cities, gathering information about their oral health, and actually booking appointments—all online.

Consumers are looking for an immersive digital experience from end to end in the marketing cycle. That means you need to choose the right tactics at the right moment and time to reach your audience in their buyer’s journey.

To make this happen for LEDC, our team has been running hyper-targeted Google Ad campaigns to reach patients when they are in the early stages of researching a new dentist and gathering information about which practice they should choose for their next appointment.

Having a deep understanding of their brand and the value propositions of their services allows us to refine our approach, drive impact, and boost leads year-over-year. The numbers speak for themselves! Look at what we’ve achieved for LEDC:

• Phone calls went up 32%: 1,289 (2020) vs. 979 (2019) 
• Form fills went up 90%: 38 (2020) vs. 20 (2019)
• General leads (including emails) increased 27%: 1,489 (2020) vs. 1,175 (2019)

There’s power in understanding your brand and target audience at their core, putting a consistent message out there, and offering outstanding customer service when you get them through the door.

Let’s Shape Your Brand Strategy

Do you know your brand purpose? Do you have clear values and goals that everyone in your organization knows and believes in? Talk to us about our Discovery and Insight services to help you research your audience and where your messaging will be most successful. 

Do you have cohesive messaging and value propositions? Do you have well-executed creative and content? Our Brand Identity services help you articulate your brand story and create stunning design assets.

Do you need the right technology and marketing platforms to help you connect with your customers? Our Digital Marketing team can help you get the most value out of your marketing dollars.

With a compelling brand strategy in place, you can transform your customers into loyal followers who believe and buy from you for years to come.