E-commerce branding 101: Where to start

Building an e-commerce brand from the ground up is no easy task. Many small business owners believe the branding for their company begins and ends with a logo. However, while a logo is part of the brand's image, it's not the overall branding. Common elements of branding include colors, taglines, products, and the logo. E-commerce companies need more visual elements to attract more customers, but they also need a way to guide them. 

An e-commerce branding strategy can help you build a personal relationship with your customers while being a valuable marketing tool that can help you find and convert more customers. Your brand reflects who you are and how you want people to remember you. This article will discuss branding your e-commerce company and how you can get started today. 

Why Is branding important?

E-commerce is a crowded industry with millions of retailers. Strong branding can help set you apart from your competitors to thrive even if you don't have unique products. Here are the reasons why branding is important. 

Builds trust

Branding can help you build trust with consumers to keep them coming back for more repeat purchases. When your customers trust you, they are more likely to take a chance on you. 

Provides an experience

Branding helps you build a relationship with customers by allowing them to share in an experience. 

Shapes customer expectations

Branding can help your customers form realistic expectations for what they can expect when shopping with your brand. 

Building a brand strategy

As we've mentioned, building a brand strategy requires more than having a great logo or website design. Once you start building your brand, you can create your own branding guide to ensure your marketing efforts align with your core offerings and values. Keeping your branding consistent can help your customers identify your company and know what to associate you with. For example, if you sell premium products, you want your branding to reflect that while also helping shape the customer's experience, so they're prepared to pay more for a better product or service. Here's how to build a brand strategy. 

Consider your audience

Before you get started, you need to know your buyer persona. Knowing your customer can help you develop a brand based on the people who will buy your products and serve as the foundation for a successful branding strategy. To learn more about your audience, you can use surveys, view current customer data, or learn about them through your competitors to discover their gender, interests, education, location, etc. Once you learn everything you can about them, you can anticipate their needs and craft messaging that speaks to them. 

A quick way to collect data as you engage with your audience is by using a live chat widget on your e-commerce website. A live chat does not only make sure that your customers get instant support, but also provides real-time tracking and analytics that can show you your customers’ preferred pages and the time spent on each page. You can then improve the style and tone of your brand accordingly.

Find out more about the benefits of having a WhatsApp-Live Chat widget on your Shopify store.

Figure out your brand positioning

Brand positioning is how you want the world to view your brand. It tells people how you compare to the competition by telling them your unique proposition and the benefits people should know about. To determine your brand positioning, you can consider whether your product is different from similar products, how you solve problems differently, and your price point. 

Consider how your brand is different from the competition to help you begin crafting a positioning that allows you to stand out from the crowd. 

Establish your mission

Every successful brand has a mission statement that consists of its core values. Your mission statement is your reason for existing and why it's essential. By having a strong mission, you can begin developing trust with your audience and creating bonds by aligning your values with theirs. 

Make a name

Every brand needs a name so customers know what to call it. Remember, you're operating in a crowded industry, so choosing something that can help you stick out is essential. A brand name should also be recognizable and memorable, and your brand name should reflect what your business does to help you effortlessly attract customers. Take a look at your competitors' names to see if you can think of a better name. 

Establish brand persona

Your brand persona is the personality of your brand. It can help you communicate with your audience. Brand personas vary greatly depending on the type of business you operate and who your target customers are. For example, a professional omnichannel chat management SaaS company will have an experienced and knowledgeable tone, while a pet company might be more playful in how they market products to the public. 

Social media is a method commonly used to showcase brand personas. Follow through the sections below for more about branding on social media.

Create visuals

Now is when you'll start thinking of your logo and other visuals that people can use to recognize your brand. Visuals are especially crucial for e-commerce brands because people will need to focus on visual elements to decide whether or not to shop with you. You can first start by designing a logo. 

There are many different types of logos, so do your research to develop a few options before you hire a graphic designer to bring your vision to life. Consider the persona you have for your brand and who your target audience is. Next, hire a graphic designer and provide them with all of the necessary information, including what your business does, who its customers are, and what type of logo you think would look best. 

Choose your colors

Every brand needs its own color palette. If you don't have a background in design, you might again choose to work with a graphic designer who can explain which colors evoke which emotional responses. Each color means something different, so finding the perfect color theme for your company is important. For example, you may have noticed that many websites are blue. That's because blue symbolizes trust, authority, and calmness, so it's a great color for just about any type of business. 

Create content

Once you have your visuals down, you'll need to create content, including web copy, product descriptions, and blogs. Your content should have a consistent brand voice depending on who your customers are. For example, pet companies may have a friendly, playful tone, while B2B e-commerce stores must use industry-specific terms and remain professional at all times. 

Other than your company’s website itself, social media content plays a critical role. With 4.62 billion social media users worldwide, branding on social media is an aspect not to be overlooked. Different social media channels require each of their distinctive content styles, for example, Instagrammers prefer aesthetic photos while TikTokers won’t waste even a second of their time on videos that don’t catch their interest. Therefore, extra research online is vital for setting the tracks ahead, and improvements must be made after observing the performance of the content created.

Share your story

Finally, it's essential to share your brand story with your customers. You can put your story on your "About Us" page on your website so people can learn about who you are and what you represent. This is a great page to point out the unique benefits of your brand and why you're better than everyone else in your space. 

Another essential space to share your brand story is again, on social media! Depending on the type of your business, certain social media platforms may be better for you to create the best strategy. 

Refine the customer experience

Customer experience is where the heart of your brand, including the values, the purpose, and the ideas comes alive. When you establish an emotional connection and leave a good impression, your customers will promote your brand to those around them.

One of the greatest ways to offer exceptional customer experience is through the integration of live chat on your e-commerce site. Here’s a scenario: A customer enters your website, and they obtain immediate assistance for whatever inquiries they have about your products and services using the live chat. This is where the excellent first impression lies. After that, they request to talk to a real agent, because yes, customers favor human interactions over virtual assistants and chatbots, as proven by research on Hubspot. So, how do you make sure that your customer agents can react fast enough so you don’t lose this lead?

The answer is, an omnichannel messaging platform. Through an advanced tool like SleekFlow, multiple channels can be made available on the live chat widget installed on your e-commerce website, so that the customers can choose their preferred messaging channel. Besides that, even after your customers leave the website, you or your customer support team can still reach out to them or send replies through the SleekFlow inbox. This frictionless process completes the perfect customer experience, boosting your e-commerce branding in the competitive marketplace.

Building a brand from the ground up can be one fun aspect of starting an e-commerce business, but you must spend enough time thinking about your company's benefits to stand out.