Guide to Develop Branding Strategies for Your e-Commerce Brand

It should come as no surprise that individuals these days prefer to shop online. This is subsequently leading to the exponential expansion of e-commerce business on a global scale with an ever-growing increase in the number of market competitors.

Operating a successful e-Commerce business, just like any other business, comes with its fair share of obstacles and risks. In the ever-competitive field of marketing, the most challenging task can, at times, be the development of a comprehensive e-Commerce branding strategy.

Efficient branding is an essential aspect for any business to master in order to connect with its target audience effectively. E-Commerce refers to the practice of selling and buying of products or services over the internet.

Transactions on these platforms make it possible for a particular business to cater to their client's needs regardless of location or what time of year it may be.

A primary goal of these platforms is to offer a better service experience to their customers. E-Commerce platforms also help in simplifying business processes, allowing them to be more efficient, quicker, and useful.

The most effective e-Commerce branding strategy has the perfect blend of emotion, requirement, and engagement. People usually don’t just purchase a product from a particular brand; instead, they buy-in to the story that the brand associates with a specific product.

Businesses require a branding strategy that can trigger or elicit a specific emotional response from prospects. The utilization of key resources, whether they are audio or video in nature, to showcase what your brand stands for, and the products or services that your business offers is the best way to make a meaningful connection with prospective clients.

Keeping this in mind, we have compiled a list of amazing ideas that will be helpful when creating a robust branding strategy for your e-Commerce business.

Ways to Develop Your e-Commerce Brand

Be a Trendsetter, not a Follower:

It is essential to have a unique brand style. This can be tailored depending on the purpose of your brand and your customer’s shopping experience.

What matters to buyers is whether or not a brand’s content aligns with what the brand stands for? Businesses can effectively meet their client's expectations by selecting styles that replicate the core focus of their brand.

Apart from mirroring your business values, your brand style should build a robust user-experience for prospective clients, when they decide to shop for products or services on your portal.

To achieve this, brands use attractive fonts, color schemes, and several other styles to stay as original as possible.

Unique business branding, coupled with a seamless buying experience, is the ideal way to flaunt your business standards to prospective customers.

Nurture Meaningful Customer Relationships:

Trust between a client and a brand is paramount to ensuring the success of that brand.

As Seth Godin (American Author) once said, "Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest".

This can be a task for most businesses to accomplish these days, especially if yours is an e-commerce brand. The reason being is that individuals generally tend to be more inclined to make a purchase if they can physically examine a product before arriving at a decision to buy.

Given that e-Commerce companies operate in the virtual realm, they must go out of their way to ensure that a lasting impression is made in the minds of their prospects.

While gaining a prospective customer’s trust may seem like a difficult task, maintaining that trust is just as important, if not even more. Effective communication is a two-way street between both parties involved and is a clear-cut way for a business to ensure success by giving their clients what they want.

Focus on Product Quality:

The phrase ‘quality over quantity’ is a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason. The outcome is usually far better when a brand focuses on producing a particular number of quality products rather than merely focusing on high-volume figures.

Several e-Commerce brands are now choosing to limit their number of products their business chooses to manufacture/sell.

Doing so improves the quality aspect of their products, and this leads to better sales stats, repeat customers, and even higher levels of customer referrals.

Real-time Customization:

We belong to a time where market competition is at an all-time high.

A brand's ability to create unique products that can be personalized as per the needs of its customers is a great way to stand out. Personalization allows for the deployment of better user-experiences across all focal points. Consumers should not be classed as a collective market but as individuals instead.

Personalization is a powerful tool when leveraged correctly, as it can significantly benefit e-Commerce brands.

Even the simplest of acts like a brand sending out personalized birthday wishes or holiday greeting cards can positively impact how a customer perceives that brand.

This can prove to be fruitious for the brand in terms of better customer retention rates and the possibility of higher existing customer referrals.

Create and Share Content on Social Media That Is of Value:

Since before the advent of social media, video content has always reserved an essential place in the world of marketing.

It has now cemented its position as the undisputed king of marketing tools, where over 87% of industry professionals use video marketing regularly. Over 93% of marketers claim that they convert a lead into a paying customer as a result of video content.

Over 75% of millennials consume video content on social media every day, and on platforms such as YouTube, there are over 5 billion videos viewed each day.

According to research, until January 2019, 37.9% of customers have made a purchase based on a social media ad.

Publish Quality Content Regularly:

If your e-Commerce business aims to attract more organic traffic, your brand’s focus should be mainly on the production of quality content.

In recent years, content marketing has played an even more crucial role in the success of a business. Posting content on a regular basis allows a brand to develop an online community and effectively engage with potential customers.

Care must be taken to ensure that the content posted by your business is consistent, top-notch, and of value (That last bit - Super Important!).

Doing this will positively impact your customer's decision-making abilities and serve as a great source of positive brand reinforcement.

To Conclude

Great branding is a pivotal element in ensuring a brand’s success in today’s ever-competitive e-Commerce landscape. It allows a business to strike a chord with each of its customers and to form meaningful connections.

Doing so will not just improve that respective brand’s revenue growth, but convert individuals that were once distant prospects into enthusiastic long-term ambassadors.

Build a brand strategy that incorporates all these trending elements to give your competitors a run for their money while taking your e-commerce company to greater heights.

Ajinkya is a social media enthusiast at Market.us who found that blogging can be a great channel to share information of value to his readership.