In digital marketing, there are many different elements that make a successful brand stand out from the crowd. The greatest brands have well-rounded campaigns that create a persona, build loyalty and create lasting relationships with their audience online. But what makes a brand great?

As you begin or continue your digital marketing efforts – let’s discuss the items that you may be forgetting along the way.

1. Strategy

While this may seem like an obvious need for some, others may not have considered their overall strategy when creating a contact for their brand. Never post without a purpose. Always take time to step back and identify the key elements that are critical to your digital marketing success such as, target audience, goals, lead generation, email marketing, SEO and content marketing plans.

Your strategy should identify key metrics to fully measure success across your efforts and analyze the right social media channels to reach your audience. It’s ok to not be on every social media channel. By setting these goals it allows you to keep your target in mind and be fully successful with the right tools in place.

2. Engagement and Personality

You may be posting amazing and engaging content, but are you taking time to humanize your brand? The days of just posting are long gone. As digital marketers and branding experts, we have to focus on the key driver of success – engagement. Taking time to respond, like and interact as an actual person showcases personality behind the logo and allows the user to fully build a relationship with the brand they are interacting with.

The greatest way to build loyal brand advocates for your brand is to give them a reason to come back. Have fun with your personalized posts. Almost one in three (31 percent) of consumers engage with retailers that share funny or interesting social posts. Never give canned responses that looks like a robot wrote back. The more understanding, fun and again human you can be the likely the audience member will stay engaged with your brand for the duration.

3. Brand Refresh

A brand refresh is one of the most critical elements that is often lost in the chaos of digital marketing. Your campaigns and strategies will work for a certain time period to accomplish goals but with time your brand will evolve and so should your approach. Yearly or even quarterly, it’s important to analyze and refocus your goals to ensure your brand is fresh and the ideas are new.

Refresh design work, take a new approach with your overall messaging and implement a creative campaign idea that gives new audience members the desire to engage. It’s always hard to change but continually evolving and adapting allows your brand to stay above the status quo and stand out from the competition.