In an increasingly competitive eCommerce market industry, it is getting harder for brands to stand out. Customers have an overwhelming number of brand options to purchase their products. Great product, exceptional customer service, and raving reviews are all excellent differentiating factors. But what makes the customers really stick to a brand is when the brand identifies with them.
When a brand gives a customer the feeling that they “get” them, it is a highly distinguishing factor for creating a loyal base of customers. One thing that comes in play here is developing an effective branding strategy that will enable your company to stick to its core values, become more reliable and relatable for your customers.
Brand strategy is a plan that includes specific, long-standing goals that can be attained with the development of your brand, keeping in focus the ideals that your company represents.
A huge misunderstanding that most brands need to clear up about branding strategy is that your brand does not only include your name and logo. In fact, your branding is much larger than that. It also includes things that are intangible. The way people perceive your brand, the values you hold, how present your product in the market, is how you differentiate between being a powerhouse or a mediocre brand.
Consider the following branding strategies that will set your brand apart from others.
Get to Know Your Audience
It is imperative to know your target audience. A target market is a segment of potential customers who are more likely to buy a product or service from you. Before you decide to overhaul your branding strategy, get to know, and understand your target audience. This way, you will attract the people who are most likely to interact with your brand and minimize any mismatches between the company and the customer.
You can use surveys, quizzes, focus groups to interact with your target audience and get a feel of what they think about your logo, motto, and other brand identifiers. Ensure that you incorporate their feedback when you’re creating the strategy.
Mastercard showed a great example for this point. In a bold move, they excluded their brand name from the company logo during their rebranding. After the change, Mastercard did a research study that found that more than three of customers who were asked about the Mastercard logo were able to identify the brand from the two interlocking red and yellow circles alone.
Strengthen Your Brand Identity
First step in strengthening your brand identity is to recognize your core philosophies, mission, vision, and ethos. This will make your brand’s foundation strong, and it will become easier for you to build campaigns that truly represent your organization.
Your logo and brand name can help you build an instant connection with your customer. Your logo can help create a great first impression of your brand. The name, logo, colors, designed materials of your brand should be strictly uniform everywhere they show. The selection of colors can play a huge role for your branded content as the human brain is wired to process visuals a lot more quickly than text. Research suggests that by adding color, you can enhance your content’s comprehension rate by 73%. That is why it is important that your logo truly signifies what your brand stands for as it will become your biggest identity. What is most important is that after selecting a color palette for your brand, your company remains loyal to those colors and uses them across all their platforms and places strategically.
Secondly, your website address, social media handles, and newsletter should all have aligned messaging. Make sure that you keep all your social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) active by posting at least once a day, and all your posts have your logo and are consistent with your brand colors.
It is crucial to maintain brand uniformity across all marketing channels. The name, logo, colors, designed materials of your brand should be strictly uniform everywhere they show.
Pivot towards Customization
Customization makes your brand unique and allows it to stand out among its competitors.
For most eCommerce businesses, the first physical touchpoint that the customer has with your brand is when they receive the package and open it. One way to make your brand’s unboxing experience count is by investing in custom shipping boxes for your company.
Arka allows you to design custom boxes that suit your brand’s needs and demands with no additional cost. Arka helps your branding become more influential by helping you blend your brand image in customized packaging by providing you the option to design your packaging. This way, even before your customer opens the package, they will have a brand affinity.
Conclusion
If you want your customers to develop brand loyalty, the first major step is for your company to develop strong branding that resonates with them. A robust and dynamic branding strategy can help your brand differentiate from its competitors and leave a lasting impact on its customers, driving up sales and revenue.
This article originally appeared in the HawkeMedia blog and has been published here with permission.
