Everything You Need To Know About Ecommerce Branding
Creating a strong e-commerce brand is essential for success in the online retail space. It allows customers to quickly and easily identify your business, builds trust and loyalty, and can help increase sales.
But what goes into creating an effective e-commerce branding strategy? And how can you make sure your brand stands out from the competition?
In this article, Upscribe will discuss the essential elements of e-commerce branding and provide tips for creating a successful strategy. We’ll also look at some of the most common branding mistakes businesses make and provide advice on how to avoid them.
Ready? Let’s begin!
What Is E-commerce Branding?
E-commerce branding is the process of systematically and deliberately building a brand for your e-commerce business.
Your e-commerce brand is the sum of all the experiences your customers have with your business—from reading through your website copy to unboxing their most recent order. It’s essentially a relationship between your business and customers that’s formed over time.
When you systematically and deliberately curate this relationship, you create a consistent and recognizable brand that customers recognize and trust. It’s what sets you apart from the competition and helps to build customer loyalty.
Not convinced? Let’s look at some examples of great e-commerce branding in action.
Examples of Successful Ecommerce Brands in Shopify
Warby Parker
When Warby Parker was founded in 2010, there were already a few e-commerce businesses in the prescription glasses industry, like Zenni Optical. There weren’t any e-commerce businesses in the prescription glasses industry with a strong brand identity, though.
Warby Parker managed to stand out by creating an e-commerce brand that focused on being unique, bold, and approachable. The brand used creative copywriting, a vintage aesthetic, and quirky campaigns to get noticed and build a community of passionate fans.
Today, Warby Parker is generating $590 million in revenue annually.
Everlane
In the sustainable fashion industry, Everlane stands out from the pack for one key reason—they’ve built their e-commerce brand around radical transparency.
On Everlane’s website, you can see detailed cost breakdowns for their products and learn about the factories they use. Plus, they’ve invested in campaigns that focus on ethical production standards and sustainability.
This approach to e-commerce branding has helped Everlane to become a leader in the sustainable fashion industry.
Why E-commerce Branding is Important?
Building an e-commerce brand with staying power isn’t easy—as we’ll see later, it requires dedication, a solid understanding of your target customers, and consistency.
But it’s well worth the effort. Here are just a few reasons why e-commerce branding is important:
1. E-commerce Branding Builds Trust.
When you create an e-commerce brand that aligns with your customers’ values, they start to trust your business and are more likely to become loyal, repeat customers.
The knock-on effect of this trust is powerful. Consumers are willing to pay more for a product from a brand they trust, even when there’s an identical product available at a cheaper price.
2. E-commerce Branding Captures Market Share (and Sales).
Earlier, we talked about branding as a powerful tool for differentiation. Well, the reason this is important is that it helps your business capture market share from your competitors.
By creating an e-commerce brand that stands out, you can position yourself as the go-to choice in your industry for a certain group of consumers. That can translate into more sales and can help you stand out amongst competitors in your niche.
3. E-commerce Branding Increases Sales.
Finally, a strong e-commerce brand can increase sales directly. After all, when customers have an emotional connection to your business, they’re more likely to take action and make a purchase.
So, the more you can tap into your customers’ emotions through an effective e-commerce branding strategy, the more sales you’ll generate.
How To Build an E-commerce Brand?
1. Identify Your Target Market(s).
Knowing your market is possibly the most important step in building an e-commerce brand.
You need to understand who they are, what they care about, and how they prefer to shop. This will guide your decisions on product design and marketing campaigns.
Most e-commerce business owners are well-aware of their target market, but it’s still worth taking some time to brainstorm and define their preferences in detail.
2. Define Your Brand.
What do you want people to think and feel when they encounter your brand? How do you want them to describe it to their friends and family?
Defining your brand means understanding who you are at a deeper level. It’s about setting common goals, values, and objectives for the business that connect it to the target market(s) you identified in the last step.
Make your brand definition as concrete and detailed as possible. Start broad and narrow down your identity, covering:
- Mission statement
- Brand personality
- Visual identity
- Brand voice
- Style guidelines
And above all, be authentic.
People are tired of the fake relatability of “brand Twitter”—they want brands that are genuine and willing to take risks.
3. Create Brand Assets.
Contrary to popular belief, brand assets (like logos, typefaces, and color palettes) aren’t the be-all and end-all of e-commerce branding.
They are important, though. You need to create assets that are easy to recognize, visually pleasing, and cohesive. These assets will help you create a recognizable presence online.
To this end, it’s important to work with professionals—whether that’s an in-house designer, a freelancer, or a design agency. They’ll be able to work within the parameters of your brand definition to create assets that represent what you stand for.
4. Add Brand Assets To Customer-Facing Content.
Once you’ve created your brand assets, it’s time to put them to work. You should add them to all customer-facing content—from your packaging to your subscription customer portal (if you offer subscriptions).
We won’t spend too long on this point, but it’s worth mentioning that choosing tools that allow for comprehensive customization is a must if you don’t want to spend weeks integrating brand assets.
Here at Upscribe, you can customize your customer portal and checkout page with colors, logos, and fonts with the click of a button. This makes it easy to match your customer experience with the visuals of your brand.
5. Focus on Product Quality.
At the heart of every strong e-commerce brand is a great product (often multiple). Brand aesthetics might fool some people, but in the end, it’s what your products can do for them that will keep them coming back.
Your product quality should be a primary focus in your e-commerce branding strategy. Don’t cut corners, and don’t settle for anything less than the best. Invest time, energy, and money into your product development process, as well as making sure you have a reliable fulfillment partner.
And on a related note, it helps to have an e-commerce management strategy that focuses on high-level product quality. Upscribe makes it easy to manage subscriptions, interact with customers, and notice trends, all from a centralized dashboard.
6. Incorporate Educational Blog Content.
One of the best ways to build an e-commerce brand is through educational blog content. This type of content allows you to demonstrate your authority and expertise in your field, as well as establish yourself as a trusted source of information.
Your goal should be to create interesting and helpful content that will help customers better understand their needs, make better decisions, and feel more confident in their purchases.
7. Meet Customers Where They Are With Email & SMS Marketing.
Your brand needs to be accessible—and that means meeting your customers where they are.
Email and SMS marketing are two of the most effective methods for increasing customer engagement and reach. Email campaigns can be tailored to customers’ preferences and interests, while SMS messages are a great way to stay in touch with customers on the go.
Upscribe adds an extra layer of accessibility to both channels by letting customers manage their subscriptions by responding to texts and emails. This helps them to stay in control of their subscriptions, while also keeping your brand top-of-mind.
8. Don’t Ignore Influencer Marketing.
Influencer marketing is an incredibly powerful branding tool.
Why?
Influencers have already cultivated strong personal brands that appeal to a large fan base. If you can find influencers who share the same values as your brand and promote it, you can quickly reach a wider audience.
In other words, you’re essentially piggybacking on the brand that an influencer has built to highlight certain characteristics of your own brand.
9. Be Consistent.
Our final, most important piece of advice? Be consistent. From your logo to your product quality to the tone of voice you use in your copy, it’s essential that customers recognize your brand as soon as they come across it.
This means making sure that all of your branding is consistent. When customers have a positive brand experience, they’re far more likely to keep buying from you in the future. And when it comes to e-commerce branding, consistency is key.
Offer Customers a Seamless Experience With Upscribe
Branding is just one of the many challenges that e-commerce businesses face. Upscribe helps you simplify the process of building a brand by creating a seamless ordering and subscription management process that your customers will love interacting with.
With Upscribe, you can manage product subscriptions and customer communications from one place, making it easy to stay in touch with your customers while reinforcing your brand image.
Schedule a demo today and see the benefits firsthand!
