Branding Your Online Business

A strong and easily recognizable brand is a huge asset to an entrepreneur. It helps your customers recognize you and your products quickly. Branding can help you stand out in the crowd as consumers recognize and identify with your values. This is especially important for stores that are competing with Amazon. Amazon has a wealth of information about the products they sell and even offer same day shipping. Many people go to Amazon for the massive amount of convenience they provide, and this is partly due to their amazing success in branding.

As you create your online brand, you should think of it as more than just a logo. Your brand is your personality, your values, your ideals and your mission statement. Having a great brand can help you edge out the competition.

A great brand experience gives consumers another reason to choose your store over the competitors. If the decision just comes down to cost, you’ll draw in customers who don’t spend a lot of money. You’ll always be lowering your prices to be competitive. However, if you have a brand that creates an experience and adds the value of personally connecting with the customers, they may be willing to pay more. This translates into more profit for you.

A great brand experience can be created through excellent content, loyalty programs, great color selection, and an easily recognizable logo.

So how does one actually create a great online brand experience?

In this post, we will cover all the basics ranging from strategy to color choice for a logo to quickly bring you up to date with best branding practices.

Niche Product and Content Strategy

Amazon definitely has the advantage when it comes to convenience and selection. And probably not worth the competition in this area. However, online businesses that have a niche product and unique content can gain an advantage over Amazon. Amazon has great product descriptions and tons of reviews, but they don’t provide blog posts about how and when to use products. They don’t connect with consumers on a personal level.

E-commerce stores no longer can just be a place to buy stuff. They need to offer a personalized experience. This can come from interacting with video content or providing insightful information about the product and how to effectively use it to solve the consumers’ problems. Creative content will win over consumers.

Establishing Brand Loyalty Among Consumers

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” - Simon Sinek, Leadership Guru.

It isn’t enough to create a visible brand, you also must establish familiarity and loyalty. Some e-commerce stores may be able to enjoy a few sales from one-off purchases. However, it is the repeat customers and referrals that help to develop a solid business.

Customers that have a positive experience at a store are likely to return again and share the experience with their friends. Customers who love their experience with your store will become brand ambassadors and share your link to earn referral bonuses.

As you think about your store, what makes your website an experience? Do you interact with the customers through social media? To create a personalized product? Does your company support a charitable cause that is near and dear to your target market’s heart? These are some of the reasons that people will choose to shop at your store instead of Amazon or the cheapest alternative.

It is also important to remember that 20% of a company’s existing customers will generate 80% of its future revenue. Therefore, it is important to focus on ensuring that your existing customers have a great experience with your brand. Make sure that your values are in line with your customers.

Essential Tools to Brand Your Business

To get your Brand’s message out to consumers, you will need a few essential tools. First and foremost, you’ll want a good logo, which can be created using a logo maker or any other way you want. There are many online tools available to craft your logo. This will help customers recognize your brand and message. Next, you’ll want to select a social media platform to connect with your customers.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great places for online stores to start Branding. Twitter allows for instant communication. Facebook is ideal for the adult age 30-50 target market. Instagram can help you display your products effectively.

To create professional images for social media, Canva can help you add text to your images. This is helpful when you want to have a sale or point out a feature of your product in the image.

A blog can help you get your message out about your brand. Wordpress is another tool that can help you publish your brand’s content. Besides communicating your mission statement, values, and unique sales proposition, blogs are also great platforms to become thought leaders in your niche, so that people trust you as an authority, further cementing your brand image.

Colors for Branding

When selecting the colors and images to display on your website and your logo, you may want to think about the emotions that they evoke. Certain colors are associated with different professions. Colors can play a role in the emotion that your customers feel. Keep this in consideration while creating your logo.

Red can evoke the emotion of excitement and fun. Orange is associated with playfulness and energy. Yellow exudes cheer and friendliness. Green is often associated with nature and finance. Blue symbolizes trustworthiness. Purple hints at femininity and royalty. Pink screams girly and youthful. Brown appears masculine. Black is often associated with modernity.

When you know what type of emotion you want your customers to experience when they visit your website, you can select the perfect color for your brand. This graphic from Boutique displays a broad view of emotions, colors associated with them and examples of companies that use them.

As you create Facebook ads, blog posts and memes for your brand, you should keep in mind that the colors you select will help the customer feel an emotion. If you want your customers to feel that your brand is fun and energetic, select reds and oranges. If you want to evoke trust, blue is ideal.

Elements of a Great Logo

A great logo is simple, unique, relevant, versatile and memorable. Simple logos are easily recognizable. Customers may even find themselves drawing your logo when they doodle. Don’t use overly complex images when coming up with your logo.

A unique logo helps your Brand stand out. People won’t confuse it with another business. It will be entirely unique to your brand.

A logo should exude relevance to your industry. Selecting a bear for a financial planner may not be the best idea. Bears represent slow markets. It is better to use a symbol, a color or a bull for the financial industry.

Versatile logos can easily be placed on websites, e-business cards, social media accounts, t-shirts, pens and pencils and still look great. Make sure that your logo can be sized to fit a billboard or a pencil.

Most importantly, the logo should be memorable. You want the customer to recall your brand when they are in the market for what you are selling. A memorable logo can help keep you top of mind.

It should be noted that strong businesses can survive a weak logo. When running a business or store, the top priority should always be to increase your profit. You can change your logo when you have greater cash flow and create a brand logo that you love.

Where to Promote Your Brand

You should promote your brand everywhere your target market hangs out. If you’re targeting high school students, buy ad space at high school football games. Sponsor a high school team and get your logo on their website.

Social media is great for branding. You should start mastering one or two platforms. Create a profile for the other platforms, but focus in on one or two as you build your audience. For the younger crowd, Instagram and Twitter are common hangouts. For Generation X and Baby Boomers, Facebook is a social media standby.

Remember, your Brand should connect you with your customers. It should inspire them to visit your website frequently. Your mission statement and goals should lead the choices in your logo, business colors, and the advertisements that you select.