How to define your ecommerce brand?
Ecommerce is a crowded place and the only way to get noticed is to create an “original brand”. A brand starts with a story/an idea/a dream. A brand that follows the herd will not experience sustainable growth. Your brand is like your sapling. You need to choose the perfect place and time to plant it, nurture it with the right balance of resources and watch it grow.
Tips to create a winning brand online
Your brand needs to echo your personality. It also needs to resonate with the audience you are trying to target. For example: If your brand targets say the 18-25 year age group and you offer chic casuals, you need to make it playful, quirky, bright and cheerful.
Brand starts with an identity – a name and a logo. They say what’s in a name? Research indicates that everything is in a name and how you choose to display the name. Your brand represents who you are, what you are selling and for whom. Don’t scrimp on this. If you have a shoestring budget, then spend generously on this as you are going to be stuck with it and if you cut corners here, it may come back to hurt you later.
Choose the right colors, font and of course the message. Question yourself on what your brand stands for and start working from there. You can find loads of resources on the internet. Here are a few to get you thinking:
How to market an ecommerce brand – The 3-Step Strategy
It is common knowledge that for any ecommerce venture, the marketing spend is huge. To make your investment go a long way, one has to come up with a phased strategy.
When your brand is in its nascent phase, you need to create awareness through content. Create an identity like a website, a social media platform account or a blog. Fuel this identity with rich content that establishes the ethos behind the brand – why, what, who, how – put it all out there. Simultaneously reach out to your personal and professional network and do personalized marketing – send emails, launch referral programs, run contests and get people interested. Some of these strategies may fail but then you will be wiser and the good part is the expense is not high so the financial impact will be lower than investing in a traditional advertising campaign like print/TV/banner etc.
Another approach that may yield good results in ecommerce is enlisting your merchandise on one or more marketplaces. This depends on the merchandise, the brand value and the audience you are targeting. Some luxury brands may decide not to go down that route, some may choose a specialty marketplace like Jaypore.com and some may decide to list on all relevant marketplaces to increase reach.
When the awareness has been established, the brand grows to the next level. Now, it is time to spend on analytics to see where, when and how the target audience is engaging with your brand. Depending on the findings, invest in limited advertising or visibility on those platforms say Instagram or Facebook or your blog. This will improve conversions. Continue to foster brand loyalty through rewards, referrals, contests, surprises and such.
When the topline increases and you see more traction for your brand, it is time to track the analytics again and identify the right area to spend. Once, that is identified, go for more aggressive but targeted marketing campaigns like Google AdWords. This can be planned around a special festive time of the year or in a particular geography or for a special product category.
What Next?
Now, that you have done the initial homework and are ready to launch, where do you start, who do you contact, what do you need to get your products or services out there?
The answer to your question is Shopify. Shopify offers a simple, intuitive, easy-to-use and maintain ecommerce platform that can help you launch your brand, manage it yourself and scale with the times.
