Essential Ecommerce Branding Strategies You Must Know.

How many brands can you name at this moment if asked to recall them?

Perhaps a few because of their catchy logo, interesting tagline, or constant social media presence.

This lasting image of a brand in the customer’s mind is the result of implementing effective branding strategies. However, it is a long-term challenging process since market trends are shifting quickly and competitors are growing every day. 

Some brands spend a hefty sum on implementing branding techniques, while others use the strategies wisely to make their brands popular among consumers.

In this article, you will learn in detail about ecommerce branding, its importance, how ecommerce brand and ecommerce branding are different, and 10 must needed branding strategies to establish a successful ecommerce company. 

So, without further ado, let’s get straight into our discussion.

What is ecommerce branding?

Ecommerce branding is the process of creating a unique brand identity that sets the business apart from its competitors and makes the brand stick in the customer’s mind for a long time. It shapes the overall impression of the ecommerce brand image as well as the products or services it offers. Hence, it can be referred to as the foundation of an online store.

Ecommerce branding is more than just promotions and campaigns. There are other key elements that act as brand building puzzles, such as visual identity, which includes the logo design, website design, color palette, and typography; brand voice and tone to communicate with the target customer; a unique selling proposition; and so on. Placing all these pieces in the right order helps make brand recognition successful.

Differences between “ecommerce branding” and “ecommerce brand”

Ecommerce brand and Ecommerce branding may sound similar, but they have significant differences that set them apart. To understand their differences, you must first understand what is an ecommerce brand and ecommerce branding.

An ecommerce brand is an online-based business that sells products or services to its target customers and generates revenue. An Ecommerce brand can sell anything, starting from apparels, accessories, software, electronic devices,  

On the other hand, ecommerce branding is all about implementing different branding strategies to establish a successful brand personality of the ecommerce brand among its customers.

Although ecommerce brand and ecommerce branding are not exactly the same, they are closely linked to one another. It is the proper implementation of ecommerce branding that shapes a strong brand identity and introduces it to its potential customers. 

Why is Branding Important for eCommerce Business?

After the recent pandemic, the retail e-commerce industry has seen a shift in customer behavior. According to Forbes, the industry grew 16% in 2021 and is expected to grow 50% by 2025. That means the competition is going to get harder with time.  

To compete with competitors, there is no better alternative than implementing an effective ecommerce branding strategy to increase brand awareness and ensure customer loyalty. 

So far, you have learned that ecommerce branding is the key to establishing a successful brand identity. Now, let us take a look at how branding can benefit an ecommerce business.

• Establish trust and strong connection with customers: A study shows that 81% of customers all around the world prefer to purchase from brands that have gained their trust. Ecommerce branding, when done in the right order, can build an emotional connection with customers. This connection can help convert a potential customer into a repeat customer.
• Help to stand out from competitors: Ecommerce branding helps to create a unique brand image that sets the ecommerce brand apart from the crowd. For this reason, ecommerce brands use an attractive brand logo, engaging taglines, appealing brand color, strong brand voice, and ecommerce branding strategy across multiple marketing channels to increase their visibility among their potential customers.
• Ecommerce branding boosts revenue:  A consistent ecommerce branding helps customers recognize the brand across all marketing channels. Continuous branding ensures that customers are well aware of the brand guidelines, core values, brand story, offerings, and so on. Consequently, the ecommerce brand gains popularity and the trust of the customers, leading to an increase in revenue.
• Allow Ecommerce brands to decrease customer acquisition costs: A significant amount of money is spent on Google Ads and meta ads to increase brand recognition and attract customers. However, online stores can gain organic customers and cut costs through e-commerce branding.

Essential Ecommerce Branding Strategies

Effective branding strategies must be put into practice if you want to establish a strong brand identity, engage with your target market, and spur growth in the fiercely competitive digital marketplace.

Here are the 10 most important ecommerce branding strategies you must know:

Define Your Target Audience

Branding strategies are all like puzzles that must be put together in the correct order. If you miss one, the rest of your efforts will suffer. The first puzzle piece of branding strategy is identifying the target audience.

All people on the internet are not potential customers for every ecommerce business. Hence, to establish a successful e-commerce business, you must have a clear understanding of who might show interest in your products or services based on their pain points, needs, and preferences. 

For example, if you sell female clothing in your online store, your primary target audience will be females of a certain demographic that can relate to your clothing items. 

So, will your target audience be children if you sell children’s clothing? 

Not directly. In this case, your target audience will be the parents of the children who will make the purchase on their behalf.

Let’s check out how you can define the target customers.

• Analyze the demographics, such as gender, age, location, financial status, occupation, and so on.
• Evaluate their online behavior, interests, values, lifestyle, purchase history, etc.
• Investigate the customer base of your competitors.
• Carry out market research through surveys, interviews, and other tools such as Google Trends.

Highlight Selling Points

In today’s vast online marketplace, there is someone out there selling the product or service you are offering. So, emphasizing your unique selling proposition can be a great way to stand out from the competition and draw the attention of your target audience.

Moreover, highlighting selling points such as the benefits, features, or value of your offerings can convey to your audience why your brand is better than your competitor. Consequently, it will grab customers attention and increase your brand’s popularity among the target market.

Wondering how you can highlight your unique selling points to your customers?

Adhere to the following guidelines:

• Conduct market research to identify what makes your product or service unique from your competitors.
• Make sure your selling points serve as a solution to your customer’s pain points.
• Use clear, concise, and easy language to convey your selling points to potential customers.
• Incorporate storytelling to build emotional connection between customers and your offerings.
• Emphasize the benefits of your products rather than just their features.

Focus on Email Marketing

If you believe that email marketing is a waste of time because most people either do not read emails or mark them as spam, you are mistaken. Also, there is a misconception that email marketing is effective for only famous or big industries. Email marketing, if executed properly, can benefit businesses of any size.

What makes email marketing so important for branding?

• Builds connection with the audience 
• Helps to form personal engagement and direct communication
• Consistent interaction with customers builds consumer trust
• Cost effective compared to other marketing channels
• Effective at generating leads
• Tracking the performance is easy
• Provides a high return on investment

How do you carry out a successful email campaign?

• Write emails in easy language with an intriguing subject line
• Use a fun-loving, semi formal tone
• Send personalized emails based on demographics, purchase history, and browsing behavior
• Make your emails visually appealing through different email templates
• Send exclusive offers, discounts, or coupons based on their interests
• Share blog posts and other informative and educational content
• Include a strong call-to-action at the end directing what customers should do (visit website, check out the offer, etc.)

Prioritize Customer Service

Do you know that every 1 in 6 customers abandons a purchase due to a poor customer experience?

Customer service is one of the key elements that can take a business to a new height as well as bring it down. Customers who are pleased with their post-purchase experience are more likely to become loyal to the brand and make repeat purchases.

Here are some tips for providing top-notch customer service:

• Include handwritten thank you notes or freebies with their parcels
• Send personalized emails expressing your gratitude
• Deliver products within the estimated delivery date
• Provide multiple customer service channels, such as email, contact number, live chat, etc.
• Solve every issue be it with product, delivery, or refund with the highest level of priority

Develop a Content Strategy

The best and most affordable method of gaining organic traffic is through content marketing. When customers are in pain or need to buy anything, the first thing they do is search on the internet. So, to reach the right target audience to whom you can sell your product or service, you must use content as your brand’s voice.

However, developing a content strategy is a prerequisite for carrying out a successful content marketing campaign. To reach the destination smoothly with proper navigation, using a roadmap is a must. Likewise, content strategy serves as a guideline for how, when, and where you have to use content to reach potential customers.

Follow these guidelines to develop your content strategy:

• Identify your goals, such as increasing brand awareness, educating customers, driving leads, generating revenue, and so on.
• Figure out the target audience 
• Decide on the type of content, such as blog post, video, infographic, etc.
• Select the content marketing channels, for example, email, social media, and so on.
• Come up with the content topics and publishing dates for every platform, and keep the record in a content calendar.

Define visual aesthetics

Visuals are one of the essential attention grabbing elements that can make customers trust and remember your brand for a long time. Whether you are doing content marketing or promoting your product, you need high-quality photos, videos, or graphics to establish your brand image. 

Ecommerce branding requires the use of professional quality product images.  As images are the only source for customers to evaluate how the product is, it is important to make the product look realistic and lucrative enough to drive their purchase decisions. 

Hence, you need to conduct high-quality photography as well as use a product image editing service, which includes different services such as background removal, color correction, photo retouching, and many more. 

Strengthen brand’s authenticity

If you compare a brand with a tree, loyal customers can be considered the roots that allow the tree to grow. So, how can you make customers devoted to your brand? 

The best solution to gain customer loyalty is to strengthen the authenticity of your brand. An online store not only accepts payments but also stores customer information. Hence, it is important to make customers believe in your brand and prefer your service over any other brand.

Here’s what you can do to reinforce the authenticity of your online store:

• Stay consistent with your marketing efforts.
• Make the best use of social media to show your brand personality.
• Ensure satisfactory customer service.
• Stay transparent with your commitment.
• Don’t make promises that you can’t fulfill.
• Use product images that are exactly the same as the original products.
• Allow for customer feedback and work on it.

Tell Your Brand’s Story

Sharing the brand story is an excellent way to establish an emotional connection with the brand. Customers love to know the brand journey, such as how the company started its journey, the ups and downs it has faced, or the obstacles that came in the way. 

Moreover, storytelling is a powerful tool through which customers can learn about the goals of a company, its values, its future plans, and so on. You can share your brand stories through blogs, podcasts, and videos. However, video content is the best option, as it attracts customers more and helps form a deep connection with the brand.

Build an app of an ecommerce store

People these days spend the majority of their time on smartphones. When an ecommerce store has a mobile application along with their website, it provides an improved shopping experience for customers.

If you notice the renowned ecommerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, or Alibaba, you can see that they have all introduced their mobile apps to grab the customer base that prefers mobile apps for shopping. Along with streamlining the shopping experience, mobile apps help to make the bond between the brand and customer stronger.

When developing an ecommerce store app, make sure to ensure the following:

• A user friendly interface
• Secured and seamless payment gateway
• Ensure data privacy
• Integration with your ecommerce website
• Order tracking features

Improve your marketing strategy

Consumer preferences are ever-changing, causing a shift in market trends from time to time. To keep up with trends and competitors, you must discard outdated marketing strategies and implement new ones. 

When upgrading your marketing strategies, ensure the following:

• Analyze competitors to figure out what changes they made to match the trend
• Study the analytics of your current marketing campaigns to identify areas for improvement
• Make changes with content formats such as tone, style, etc.
• Share unique and engaging content across all social media platforms
• Consider both customers needs and search engine algorithms when amending the strategies
• Optimize product descriptions and website information  on a regular basis
• Make your offerings different than those of your competitors; for example, if competitor is offering discounts, you can launch referral program, offer coupon codes, etc.
• Monitor the performance of the marketing strategy to see how customers interact and where further changes are needed.

Conclusion

Ecommerce branding may seem daunting, but when executed properly, it can help establish a strong brand value, a strong customer base, boost sales, and generate higher revenue in the long run.

However, make sure to have patience, as the results of implementing all these strategies may take some time to become visible. Just make sure to keep track of the performance so you can adjust the strategies as per the needs of the market and your business.

We are confident that if you follow the strategies we have discussed so far, you can take your online store to a new height.