Written by: Natalia Nicholson, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you dream of launching an E-Commerce business yet you have limited capital, branding is key to marketing a digital business without spending money. Regardless of the products, when branding and marketing is executed with the target customer group in mind, you can quickly generate a sustainable profit. Branding is the competitive advantage that will separate you from other E-Commerce sites selling similar or the same products. Customers will make purchases for products they don’t ‘need’ yet still ‘want’, this type of purchase is based on emotions and branding is the most effective way to create an emotional connection between your E-Commerce business, the products sold, and potential customers.
Branding is the way E-Commerce business (and any business) can ‘subconsciously’ transmit a message that triggers the emotions of prospective customers. This in turn drives customers to purchase products, they may not have considered buying otherwise. Research has shown that effective branding will not only increase sales, it will also increase the purchase price customers are willing to pay for those products. Branding is not the same as visual merchandising, branding relies on creating emotions to drive sales. When considering how to brand your digital business you need to consider your target market and what they want to achieve.
Branding Case Study
Let’s consider the infamous slogan by Nike ‘Just Do It’, why does this encourage and drive customers to pay more for Nike products over unbranded products?
The ‘Just Do It’ slogan taps into the psychology of individuals who are purchasing products from Nike. They may already be into fitness or want to get fitter, either way by purchasing products from Nike, customers have their ‘commitment’ to get fitter reinforced by the slogan that by buying Nike products they will have the motivation to ‘Just Do It’.
How to Create an Effective E-Commerce Brand
Prior to starting an E-Commerce business, creating a brand will help you to build loyal customers and clients for a profitable and sustainable business model. When choosing a target market, your brand needs to appeal to customers' emotions and not just their wallets. Great branding is about understanding the emotions that drive customers to buy the products you intend to sell. To get started ask yourself the following 3 questions.
What are three priorities customers have when they buy the type of products you are considering selling, look at Amazon reviews for similar products to get some ideas?
List your 3 favourite brands and the feelings you associate with them. Really think about the emotions you feel do you feel excited, motivated, happy?
Think about a product you have purchased but never used, what were you doing at the time you made the purchase, and what did you want the product to help you achieve?
Branding Strategies for E-Commerce
Online shopping is a lucrative industry that has experienced significant growth, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This has also created intense competition and diligent preparation and research is vital to start and grow a profitable online shop. There are various branding strategies that can be used for E-Commerce sites and it is possible to create a brand and achieve outstanding results (sales) with zero initial outlay, here are my top five branding strategies for E-Commerce.
Your Vision Statement builds trust and needs to connect with customers. Start by choosing 3 or 4 words that you want to use to describe your E-Commerce business. Then use those words to write your vision statement. For example, Nike’s vision incorporates the following words: Authentic, Connected, and Distinctive
Your Mission Statement is what your brand is based around and can then be compressed into a slogan. Nikes mission statement is: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete and Nike’s slogan is ‘Just Do It’.
The slogan does not use the same words as the mission yet they are cohesive.
Your Logo helps customers remember your E-Commerce business. There are various elements to consider when designing a logo, the colours used have been demonstrated in a study by The Logo Company to evoke different feelings. Once you have chosen the colours you need to consider fonts, unless you want to choose an emblem such as Apple, almost all logos have typography. One study even found that the font can impact how much a person trusts a quote they read in The New York Times. The colours used in a logo have also been related to the feelings evoked
Branding, Websites, Marketing and Social Media
Your brand needs to be consistent throughout your website and social media pages. Whenever potential customers see anything related to your E-Commerce business they should have the branding reinforced. Without consistency, branding does not work. This means putting your logo on every page of your website, on your emails, even if it’s just an order confirmation and on all your social media pages, one way to incorporate your logo on personal social media pages is by having a banner that incorporates your business logo.
Resources
There are numerous free sites that you can design your logo, banners, and social media posts on, Canva is one of the easiest to use, and if you want more creative freedom Ucraft Logo Maker provides a vector editor. Just don’t wait for a moment of inspiration, just sit down and get it done!
If you want more digital marketing tips for your online business, join my exclusive Facebook group for free here.
Natalia Nicholson, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Natalia Nicholson is a Serial Entrepreneur, Business and Digital Marketing Coach, and Professional Public Speaker. Natalia has over 20 years of experience working as a digital serial entrepreneur and has had plenty of her own failures as well as success stories. This has perfectly placed her to be able to offer insight and advice to other women aspiring to become digital entrepreneurs, together with those who have already launched their own businesses. Through her mastermind group, Women in Digital Business, Natalia teaches them the best way to leverage the potential of digital marketing and helps them to learn the best ways of overcoming the challenges that they are facing when it comes to becoming successful online businesswomen. Her passion for online business coaching and digital marketing has inspired her to bring inspiration to women from largely overlooked underrepresented groups.
