"The digital asset that matters is trust. Awareness first, then interaction, and maybe a habit, but all three mean nothing if they don't lead to permission and trust."

—Seth Godin 

Here at The Growth Guys, we constantly bang on about the importance of having great digital assets. A digital asset is anything that's attached to your brand online. Your website, your Instagram account, and your Facebook page are all examples of digital assets that you most likely already use and manage daily. They are the footholds of your brand, existing to create opportunities for meaningful interactions between you and your potential customers.

The way you manage your audience's interactions with your digital assets ultimately will play a significant role in the success of your marketing outreaches, making your digital assets one of the most important aspects of your business. 

Marketing with Your Digital Assets

Approximately 90% of your audience will not respond to your marketing outreaches the first time they are exposed to them. Each time they see online content from your brand, it may pique their interest or create an impression, but it can take weeks or even months of effective retargeting to get them to buy. 

Continuously re-engaging your audience through your social media presence is an inexpensive and measurable way to keep your brand at the forefront of your audience's minds until they're ready to purchase. 

All of your social media channels are an important extension of your brand. An effective ecosystem of digital assets adds intrinsic value to your business. A business with a functioning multi-channel digital strategy that successfully engages its audience is well established within its market and is set up for long-term success. 

When all your digital assets are performing well individually and together, they can give you an invaluable dataset of how your audience engages with your brand, including the number of impressions, shares, views, clicks, and time spent on pages. You can utilise this data to optimise future marketing campaigns and judge their success.

A well-performing digital asset in an ecosystem of other well-performing digital assets also creates an environment where you can knuckle down on different elements of growing your business. If your digital assets are successful, you're in a great position to troubleshoot any time you might need to make a change to your marketing strategy because you already know your digital assets are solid. 

The Medium is the Message

Creative messaging is at the heart of all your digital assets. It is imperative that you understand what message you are sending to your audience through your digital assets. This messaging can incentivise your customers to buy and affect the way your customers perceive your brand subconsciously. You don't want to get this wrong! 

It's essential to understand and focus on your target audience when releasing content on social media. Everybody reacts to content differently; the same content can inspire some consumers to buy and others to unsubscribe. Therefore, you want to make sure you're reaching your audience at all times and ignoring those that don't connect with your message— they aren't the ones who will be making sales!  

Of course, it's great if your content is reaching a bigger audience outside of your targeted audience, but only if it still captures your potential customers' interests as well. All exposure is good exposure, but exposure that leads to sales is truly valuable.

Your multi-channel digital assets are each a touchpoint for your brand to stir up a desired emotion in your audience, surrounding them with a consistent brand message. Consumers want to feel like the brands they purchase from are an extension of their own identity. They want to participate in the brand's messaging and actions rather than being an observer. So make them feel connected to your branding, and encourage them to get involved by purchasing items that bring your brand message from the screen to their everyday lives.

Creating a Positive User Experience 

Capturing your audience's attention is not the only challenge to building well-performing digital assets. Once your creative has captured your audience's attention, you need to address and overcome any barriers that could prevent your customers from buying. 

One of the most overlooked barriers between customers making a purchase or not is user experience, especially when purchasing on your website— your most valuable digital asset.

You need to invest in your website to make sure that it loads quickly, that it's easy to navigate and clear to read, and that it inspires your customers to believe in your brand and buy now.

Small things on your website can lead to a poor user experience, which in turn can lead to losing a potential customer. The quality of a website and its loading times is what a consumer will subconsciously use to decide the trustworthiness of your brand. 

Would you wait 30 seconds for a website to load when you can usually access its competitors in 2 seconds? Would you feel comfortable entering your credit card details on a website that is full of spelling mistakes? How often have you purchased a product or service from a .wordpress website? 

Your customers will answer these questions the same way.

User experience focuses on understanding your customers' needs, values, abilities, and limitations. If you're struggling to create a good user experiences for your customers, consider whether your digital assets and content are: 

Useful— Does your content fulfill its purpose for existing? Does it serve a purpose and fulfill your audiences’ needs?

Usable— Is your asset easy to use, or does it cause frustrations? What can be adjusted to make your user’s journey smoother? 

Desirable— Do the images and design elements you’re using compel your audience to interact with your brand and buy your products? Do they integrate well with your brand image? 

Findable— Is different content easy to locate and navigate? Is the content optimised to put your assets in a ‘be found’ position? 

Accessible— Does your content and design take into account users with disabilities or limitations? Do your images include alternative text that screen readers can accurately process? Are you visually spacing out large amounts of text to make it easier for everyone to digest?

Credible— Is your content presented in a way that makes users believe and trust what you are telling them? 

Still struggling? It may be time to reach out for help. 

At the Growth Guys, we work with our partners to optimise their digital assets that are performing well already and build up those that are not to grow your brand's presence and customer base. Growing your digital assets plays a big part in growing your business BETTER, not just BIGGER. 

If you are interested in hearing how we can help you improve your digital assets, contact us today for a free consultation.