Arsineh Boghozian

How to build a brand: 7 best strategies to create a strong brand identity for e-commerce business The key factor for attracting your ideal audience, cultivating loyalty, and increasing sales is having an effective brand identity. It all coneys via your logo, tagline, mission statement, visual design, website content, social media, customer service, and overall user experience. Customers may make an informed purchasing decision by knowing what to expect from an e-commerce business thanks to branding, which is communicated through taglines, images, and carefully crafted marketing content. Excellent e-commerce branding is all about building trust with consumers and creating a brand identity that is reliable and recognizable. This empowers e-commerce businesses to differentiate themselves from the competition and showcase their products. An e-commerce business can stand out through many factors including, high-quality custom-made products, extremely fast and efficient service, clear pricing, and many more. In this article we’ll explain 7 best ways to build a powerful brand identity for ecommerce businesses throughout all touchpoints. What are the elements of a brand? Brand building includes more than designing a logo, crafting a slogan, or choosing a color palette. To develop a successful brand, you have to do lots of preliminary work before you begin creating a website or crafting marketing resources. Here we explain the elements that you can include in your brand guidelines: Your Brand identity Your brand identity incorporates your business name and visual fundamentals that determine your brand, including the aesthetic of your photography, logo, colors, and social media accounts. Your brand's narrative and competitive edge are also part of your brand identity. Your target audience One of the most significant chapters of building a brand from scratch is determining your target audience. Everything derives from this. You can create a brand that communicates directly to your audience by clearly determining your target market. Values and mission The compass of your business is your brand’s mission. It launches a goal for your company and a promise to your customers. Your brand is a reflection of your principles. Both your mission and values are crucial when you create your brand because they monitor your decisions. As a brand, you should always adhere to your mission and core principles. Your brand voice By defining brand voice, brand consistency is guaranteed throughout all customer touchpoints. Make sure that your website copy and other communications reflect the frank tone that your clients expect from you on social media. Your brand style guide Your brand guidelines include your brand style guide. It showcases precisely how your brand will rise on all channels or platforms. It spells out adequate use of your logo, fonts, brand voice tone and aesthetic of your brand entirely. It's a helpful manual for growing, hiring, and using agencies to produce work for you. Best strategies for Building a Strong Brand Identity for Your E-commerce business 1. Know your target market Knowing your target audience is a crucial way to establish a robust brand identity. You have to identify your potential customers and your competitors. Every reliable business plan and brand strategy relies on understanding your competitors and potential clients. Businesses that utilize a targeted strategy for branding instead of attempting to appeal to everyone will earn a greater return on investment. You need to understand your audience’s preferences in order to craft a unique brand logo. Moreover, you can only establish an exceptional brand identity if you have a complete understanding of competitive environment. Businesses can leverage market research to gain knowledge of customer behaviors, demographics, preferences, and purchasing behaviors. E-commerce companies can utilize this data to evolve targeted digital marketing campaigns, craft customized product recommendations, and adjust their user experience to service their top markets more effectively. Before beginning the brand-building process, you can run market research in a variety of ways:  Use Google to find your service or product category and evaluate all your competitors that are showing in search results.  Have conversations with people who are part of your target audience and ask them about the brands that they purchase from in your industry.  Analyze all related social media accounts that your target audience follows.  Purchase products online or in stores and collect information about how your customers are browsing and purchasing items.  Examine market trends in your field by using Google Trends, social media, and periodicals. When you are researching, write down the top brands in your market. What are your advantages over them? What are they doing correctly? This is called your unique selling proposition(USP). You should also focus on the behaviors that your target audience shares, such as the platforms they use most frequently, the language and slang they use, and the way they interact with other brands. These observations will assist you in determining the most effective way to contact them. 2. Establish your brand’s personality and values Brands have diverse characters that form their communications, behavior, customer relationships, and unique image. It's one of the most important strategies for giving ecommerce businesses a distinctive brand identity. To build your brand identity start by defining your vision. Then, focus on defining your personality features. Define if your brand is innovative, friendly, dependable, or convincing. Recognize the feelings you wish to be connected with. Next, identify your key brand values, or guiding concepts and beliefs. Values such as transparency, sustainability, or quality distinguish your brand. Communicating your values and personality to your target audience facilitates an emotional connection. Moreover, it fosters consumer loyalty, creates a distinctive brand, builds trust, and draws in partners and influencers who share your values. A robust point of view will resonate with the audience you care about most. You can complete these practices to evolve this point of view and a diverse brand voice. Build a positioning statement A positioning statement is one or two sentences that assert your brand's position in the marketplace. A positioning statement should define what are the products or services that you sell, who it's for, and what are the specifications that make you exceptional. Even in a competitive market, your competitive advantage will come from your value proposition. For example, this is Coca-Cola’s positioning statement “For quality beverage seekers, Coca-Cola offers a wide range of the most refreshing options. Each creates a great experience for customers when they enjoy a Coca-Cola brand drink. Unlike other beverage options, Coca-Cola products inspire happiness and make a positive difference in customers' lives, and the brand is intensely focused on the needs of consumers and customers.” Use word association to generate ideas. Think of your brand as an individual. Answer these questions and describe this individual.    What type of personality do they have? Do they possess the type of personality that would appeal to your clients? How can your narrative shift from a person to a brand? By answering these questions you’ll develop a perfect view point of view and distinct brand voice. Improve your brand tone and voice You may refine your brand's voice and tone to better understand how you want to come across to consumers and how you want them to feel when they engage with you. Make a list of rules that specify what language you will and won't use in your correspondence. You might want to focus on particular communication channels such as customer service or social media. 3. Create an engaging brand story The biography of your business and often your own personal story as a founder is known as your brand story. One of the best strategies for building a powerful brand for e-commerce businesses is storytelling. You can utilize this powerful tool for your branding to humanize your business to build deep relationships with your clients. Consumer trends indicate a desire for deep connections with brands. The most effective approach to accomplish this is by telling a clear, convincing, and authentic story. Which aspects of your narrative will appeal to your intended audience? What information is necessary for them to relate to you personally? Creating and sharing your unique brand story enables you to authentically showcase your company's motivational and exciting origins, fundamental beliefs, and mission. You can craft various types of stories such as product design, founder, behind-thescenes, customer success, and origin. You can share these stories across all channels such as your website, newsletters, social media, and more. Effective brand stories engage consumers, foster loyalty, and boost sales. Therefore, spend more time crafting your own brand story and including it in your e-commerce marketing plan. There are many ways to showcase your unique brand story in e-commerce branding like brand messaging, social media posts, product descriptions, and brand’s founding story. Generating a catchy and unique slogan After you’ve initiated your positioning and your brand story, you can begin to create a snappy slogan for your business. An excellent slogan is catchy, short, and leaves a powerful impression. 4. Create brand guidelines across all platforms Implementing your branding across your business provides a unified brand story. Customers should be able to recognize your brand whether they come across it in a retail store, on TikTok shops, Facebook, or in their mailbox. While you are creating your website, setting up your social accounts, and crafting your marketing plan, consult your brand guidelines, values, and mission statement to make sure that your target audience is at the forefront of every choice you make. You can monitor your brand identity entirely on your website. Make use of this space as much as possible. Templates for e-commerce websites are an excellent place to start. Most of these themes are completely customizable. 5. Build a unique visual identity Making a consistent visual identity for your e-commerce website might be the first step toward building a robust brand identity. It’s the best way to showcase your personality and revoke specific feelings quickly. Here we explain a few ways to build a strong brand identity for e-commerce websites by creating a reliable visual identity.  Pick color palettes that line up with your brand vibe. Blue fosters trust. While bold reds promote excitement.  Choose font styles and graphic elements that support your aesthetics and message.  Ensure that all touchpoints use the same logos, images, and design elements. The use of blue in Fortune 500 firms' logos to convey dependability, professionalism, and trust is a great example. Establish your visual elements After you’ve done the research and you decided your core values, you start building the actual pieces such as logo, brand colors, typography and elements. Visuals are one of the necessary eye-catching factors that can convince clients to trust and remember your brand for a long time. It’s necessary for you to have high-quality photos, graphics, or videos to create your brand image whether you’re advertising your product or doing content marketing. Customers can only analyze a product's quality through its photographs, therefore it's critical to make sure it looks lucrative and realistic enough to influence their decisions to buy. Therefore, you have to take excellent photos and also utilize a product image editing service, which has a variety of services like color correction, background removal, photo retouching, etc. 6. Create your brand website and logo Your e-commerce website represents your brand identity. You have to focus on critical elements such as user-friendliness, visual appeal, and on-branding. Expert tutorials on building an e-commerce website, include how to use Shopify, Wix, WordPress, and other technologies to design and optimize your website. You may think designing a logo is one of the first things that you should do while establishing a brand, but it should be done later. Designing a logo is a crucial identification for your brand in the wild, and it's difficult to modify once you’ve locked it in. Your logo must be distinctive, recognizable, and adaptable so it works in all sizes. Additionally, it should include all the effort you’ve put into your company so far. Does it appeal to the emotions you want to inspire in your clients? Does it align with your brand colors? Does it provide a narrative consistent with the principles of your brand? You can include your logo not only on your website, social media embodiment, product packaging, video ads, and YouTube channel banner, but also in email marketing, partnerships press mentions, and browser favicon (the small icon that indicates your open browser tabs). Different types of logos Type-based logos like wordmarks and letter marks are the most popular types of logos for contemporary brands. But depending on your goals other styles might suit your brand better. Some logo types include abstract logos, mascot logos, emblem logos, and icon logos. 7. Use eye-catching Imagery and Photography Utilizing eye-catching imagery is one of the easiest ways to build a powerful brand identity for e-commerce businesses. High-quality images draw in customers and increase brand recognition, which enhances brand recall (meaning the capacity of consumers to remember the brand when reminded). Captivating illustrations have the power to create or destroy a sale by arousing feelings. Furthermore, when making an online purchase, 87% of buyers prefer high-quality product photographs over descriptions. Utilize spectacular product images and lifestyle photos to deliver your unique brand identity and story. Moreover, you can use demos, video content brand stories, and usergenerated unboxings. Here we explain some examples of visuals: Product images: high-quality images of the products taken from various angles. Product-only images with a white background or staged images of the product in use can be used also. Videos: Videos can present an engaging story that appeals to viewers or show how to use a product. You can utilize various types of videos such as product demos, brand stories, and behind-the-scenes that deliver a brand identity and create an emotional bond with the client. Social media content: eye-catching imagery, videos, and GIFs posted on social media boost brand awareness and interaction. Final thoughts Creating a logo is just the beginning of developing a brand. It’s an ongoing process of developing your brand identity in your customer's minds. Consistency in messaging and purposeful brand marketing are key components of a successful brand. Now that you’re familiar with the concept of building a brand from scratch, for as long as your company is in operation, you will be developing your brand. You might elaborate on your brand when your principles change or when buyer trends require. Vistify is a top ecommerce platform that enables businesses to cultivate with scalability and flexibility. We offer comprehensive insights into both B2C and B2B strategies through thought leadership on e-commerce trends, best practices, and innovations, empowering companies to prosper in the fast-paced digital marketplace of today. Schedule time to explore the BigCommerce platform with us Request a Demo